Tom Coburn: “I am happy to respond. As the Senator knows, on the conference report I am unable to offer amendments to eliminate those…”

“I am happy to respond. As the Senator knows, on the conference report I am unable to offer amendments to eliminate those things. As the Senator well knows, also, I have started down a track where I am going to confront earmarks in the Senate or we are going to change that. With that, I offered on almost every appropriations bill what was called a sunshine amendment. That will be offered again in the House next year, and when we come to conferences, the ability to put in extraneous earmarks has got to be limited. I would, however, answer the Senator. Having had an oversight hearing on food stamps, we spend $1.6 billion in giving food stamps to people who do not qualify, who have more than the capability to take care of themselves. That is at a rate of 6.9 percent of every person who comes to attest for food stamps. So I believe the same thing can be said for the Food Stamp Program that we can say about Medicare and Medicaid, that we need to run a bill. We need to have better oversight. We need to check it so the fraud and abuse is out of it. As the Senator knows, I do not like earmarks because I believe they compromise the operation of good government. I think they buy votes when votes would not be there. I think the Government has grown because of the force of earmarks. So I am not aware of those specific things. I have not looked at it, to answer the Senator's question. But I am not happy they are there. Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for one more question?”