Tom Coburn: “What the country is looking for us to do is to choose priorities, to make good choices about the priorities of what we…”

“What the country is looking for us to do is to choose priorities, to make good choices about the priorities of what we do with their money. Quite frankly, there has not been a top-down review on all the Government programs, ever. We have had very limited oversight hearings, which should be the No. 1 part of our job. And we have in front of us a bill that has $400 million in directed earmarks, which we think, through what the appropriations process has brought to us, is an important priority. What this amendment says is that we are going to give the Members of the Senate an opportunity to vote on whether those are the most important priorities or whether we ought to have children's health care because what this amendment does is redirects this money in abeyance until we say we have the kids in this country covered. There is a large debate over the SCHIP bill that the President recently vetoed. There are a lot of things wrong with it. It is not wrong to help poor kids get health care. Nobody in the Senate opposed that. What they did oppose is changing, under the guise of a debate for children, a debate of having the Government start running all of the health care for kids.”