Tom Coburn: “It is very important we not leave the debate on earmarks. What we saw was an issue about the integrity of Congress which…”

“It is very important we not leave the debate on earmarks. What we saw was an issue about the integrity of Congress which Senator DeMint and myself have been championing. There are only 4 Members of the Senate who don't offer earmarks, 4 out of 100 who don't play the game of earmarks. It is important that the American people know that if we are going to have earmarks, it ought to be clearly identified. We ought to know who is benefiting, who is getting the money, who is sponsoring the money, and what the outcome will be. It is great that the Appropriations Committee has just stated that they are going to voluntarily accede to the rules we passed 98 to 0, except there is one small problem with that; the fact is, there is no enforcement of the rules available to Senators when they violate that very point, which means they may follow that, but if, in fact, they do not, we have no course of action with which to raise a point of order when they do not. I wish to go back to something the esteemed Senator from Illinois said, which is, we have gotten what we want. No, we have not. We have not gotten it until the American people get the transparency they need about how the Congress operates. If you eliminate earmarks in appropriations but do not eliminate earmarks in authorizations, what is authorized as an earmark will come to the appropriation as not an earmark because it is then authorized, so we will play the same game but one step further back.”