Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, first, I compliment my colleagues from North Dakota. They have described a very real problem in farm country. Western Oklahoma and north central Oklahoma have been plagued by drought. Much of the wheat crop could not be planted last year because there was no soil moisture in which to plant it. The problem they are describing is a very real problem. The emotional context in which they put it is a very true indication of the plight of some of the farmers from Oklahoma and throughout the country. When you look at agriculture in our country, what we find is it is basically undercapitalized. If the average farm was about 1,800 acres, the average farmer could take 2 terrible crop years and still be OK, still have his assets, still have the ability to come back and earn again. We have great commodity prices right now. The problem is there were no crops to take advantage of those great product prices. The idea that we ought to be about helping our farmers is a correct idea. I applaud both Senators from North Dakota for their persistence in bringing up this issue. As a matter of fact, I think this issue is so important to the real problems that are out there because I don't see how we can leave here on Friday, which everyone is planning on doing, and not address this issue. There is a lot I disagree with in this bill. The Senators from North Dakota know that. I have expressed it. I am going to outline some of those. If this election taught us anything, it is that the American taxpayers want us to put good value with what we do. A couple of facts: This bill can be paid for. It is not. This amendment is not paid for. But it could be. As a matter of fact, I would bet that after this election we have a consensus within the Senate to pay for it. Let me give you some examples how we pay for it. I know the Senator from North Dakota has another which I didn't think of, but I know several on this side would probably agree it is a great pay-for. There is $8.13 billion in unobligated balances in the Agriculture Department right now. That money could be used to pay for this, and then in the reappropriations process that we start in February we could come back through, recognizing that we are using $4.8 billion of that money to pay for this. One of my problems with the Agriculture appropriations bill that this amendment is going to be attached to is there is $800 million worth of earmarks, most of which come out of the very services the farmers are dependent upon to grow a good crop. A lot of it comes out of ARS, the very thing we shouldn't be taking money out of, but yet we have $758 million worth of earmarks that aren't necessarily a priority for our country or the farm communities but are a priority in terms of the political benefits that it gives the Members of this body and the House. This is a fine-print page of all the earmarks in this bill. Most of the American public, when they look at it, 50 percent of these projects they would have trouble stomaching saying this is a priority at this time. There is no attempt to eliminate the earmarks to pay for this, which would pay 20 percent of this Agriculture bill disaster amendment we have before us.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the Senators from North Dakota for their effort. This bill coming to the floor, the underlying bill--not this amendment--the emergency money could have been offset when it came through the appropriation process, and it wasn't. It was just put in. We don't want to make the hard choices. We don't want to pay for them. That has to change in the future. My hope is we will give some consideration because as things stand and look now, we are not going to have an emergency bill with which the agricultural community that has been so hurt by the drought this past year and year and a half is going to have something to hang their hat on come the first of the year. I look forward to working with the two Senators from North Dakota to try to accomplish that. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. I am happy to.

Mr. COBURN. I would be happy to.

Mr. COBURN. I agree with the Senator. He knows my record. I have not voted to not pay for anything in this body. I don't believe we borrow the future of our children to take care of our present-day needs.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I reclaim the floor. Let me talk again about some of the problems that are behind the bill as it is presently written. We are never going to have a crop insurance program in this country that will ever work if we keep bailing people out who fail to buy crop insurance. Granted, there is a change in this bill from what it was. It was 35 percent or 40 percent available to those who didn't buy crop insurance. Now we have cut it to 20. But we are still sending a signal that you don't have to buy crop insurance, because even if you do not, we are going to be there with the money. That is exactly the wrong signal. If we want to have a crop insurance program to work, we have to have the discipline to say if you choose not to buy it and we had this available to you, then in fact you are not going to get the benefit.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, the overall point of all this is we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. The hard way is what the American people expect us to do--and the hard way is paying for this. The easy way is not to pay for it. The easy way is to walk out of here this Friday having maybe passed your amendment or not. It is not going to make any difference in terms of the farmers because it isn't going anywhere. We have already been told that. The hard way is to make the tough choices about the priority of the Government spending of this country and say the farmers ought to be prioritized at this point in time. We are going to do the hard work to make the cuts somewhere else to pay for it.

Mr. COBURN. Let me make my point. I will yield in a minute. What we are doing, if we pass this without offset, we are taking out the good old politician credit card saying we don't have the guts to do it the right way, we don't have the stamina to do it, we don't have the courage to do it. By the way, grandchildren, here you go. Back in 2006, we couldn't do the right thing, we didn't have the courage to do the right thing, and we are charging it to you. And besides charging it to you, we will charge the interest from the time now until you are 40 years of age, so you are paying 40 percent or 50 percent regular, middle-income-America taxes because that is the only way we will get out of this. Three points, and then I am finished. There are things that need to be changed in the bill that send the wrong message, especially on crop insurance. We will never get crop insurance fixed if we keep sending the message we are sending with this amendment. No. 2, there are other organizations within the Federal Government designed to help small businesses. We ought to use them rather than create another one. The third point, we ought to pay for it. We as a Congress do not have the courage to stand here and fight and say we are not going home until we have taken care of this problem for the farm community in America and done it right--not limiting payments but looking at payments as a percentage of your net assets rather than having a fixed dollar amount. We don't have the courage to do that for the American people. That is what the American people rejected in this last election. They want Congress to stand up and fight courageously for the values they use every day in their homes and their jobs when they have to make decisions. They have to decide on priorities. We will walk out. There isn't going to be any aid for the farm community. Come back in February. When we do it again, it probably isn't going to get paid for--either the Agriculture bill, for $4 billion in the original Agriculture bill, or this one probably won't get paid for, and we will slip them a credit card and say: Timeout; we will not make the tough choices; we did not have the courage to fight for your future. By the way, the exit polls at the last election show that 57 percent of Americans do not believe their kids will have it as good as we have it today. If we keep doing this, they won't. It is our obligation to start acting and doing what we say on the campaign trail. We are interested in securing the future for the next generations of this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor again, the point is had we not given 45 percent before, many of these would have bought crop insurance. The very fact that we are going to go out and give money to people who had an opportunity to protect their losses and chose not to, we are sending a signal that we are going to get less participation in crop insurance, not more. What we want is a crop insurance program that will work and which has the incentive so that many farmers say, Uncle Sam isn't going to come; I have an opportunity to protect myself and I am going to buy it. Does it cost me something? Sure. The second point I was going to make relates to the chart which the Senator from North Dakota showed which showed the amount of losses. What he didn't say is that farmers also had the opportunity to buy a much higher level of coverage which they chose not to do. But it is out there. Had they done this, their losses would have been far less than they are today. Economically, they have to make a decision. I am not against helping those who are in need today. But I think there are things which could perfect the amendment which I hope the Senators from North Dakota would consider. We have had two great production years in this country where net farm income has been as high as it has been except this last year. We are going to be calculating off a base of the highest that we had. That is number one. Number two, there is nothing in this that looks at net assets of a farmer because farmers who in fact are capitalized to the degree that they can take a tough year--we are going to pay them, too. The American people have kind of spoken in November. Use common sense. Give us value for our dollar. The very well-to-do farmer who is very well capitalized we are going to bail out as we are going to bail the guy who is not, and he is the one who doesn't need bailing out. What I want to see us at some point go to in the future with our farm programs is how we increase the capital of the individual farmers where they are capitalized to the level where they can in fact hit a bump in the road and still make it; can in fact hit 20 bumps in the road, and we know what that is. I have the studies. It is a minimum of 1,800 acres and the capital to supply the equipment to farm such 1,800 acres. The other thing in this bill is the duplication of programs that are already out there. That is $300 million to help small businesses who supply the farm community. That is what the Small Business Administration is all about. We are going to turn around and give $80,000 to small businesses. We have a program for that. Yet we are going to turn around and create another Government program that is going to say you didn't have to be a good businessman if there is a little bit of a dent in the crop year; all you have to do is come and be bailed out, too, instead of taking a program that we need to make better, that sends a signal to the farmers, saying we are going to help you when you need help, but you have to be responsible in terms of crop insurance. We will let the other branch of the Government that has these areas covered be made available and we will help nurture the staff there. One other area that kind of drives me crazy with this amendment is we are adding staff to the Department of Agriculture. They have 95,000 employees. Not all of those are in agricultural production. They have several thousand contract employees, and we are going to add employees to implement this. I tell you that from my visits around Oklahoma, there are more than enough people at FSA and all the different branches and all the different organizations associated with the Department of Agriculture to implement this now. We don't need to add people. What we need to do is get the money to the people who need it. And we can do that. All we have to do is have good management and good direction. I abhor the fact that we steal money from ARS for earmarks to help us politically but hurt the very people that we say we want to help with this amendment. I think it is also wrong to take money from AFS which deals with bovine encephalitis and bird flu. We are taking money and time away from that agency to pay for earmarks. That is wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. If we are going to have earmarks, let us take it from some place that is not going to undermine the very farmers we say we are trying to help. We have a ton of cattle in Oklahoma, and I know we do all through the central Midwest and in the upper plains, that have been markedly harmed by the drought. We need to be careful with the precedent we set here. We are slowly moving in a direction to make all production agriculture similar to what we have done with crop insurance agriculture. I think we need to have the patience to say how do we do this in a way that does not create another expectation of bailing someone. The Senator from New Hampshire was very correct when he talked about what this bill is going to do in terms of busting the budget. I am going to be voting to sustain the point of order because I don't think we should be doing it that way. I want to be very clear. That doesn't mean I think we should not be doing something to help farmers. I also will say very insistently that if this Congress goes home without addressing this issue on a freestanding bill for agriculture assistance, I think we will have let down the American people. I know we will have let down the American farmer and rancher. I think we ought to consider looking at the adjournment resolution and mount an opposition to this if this issue is not addressed before we go home. I think we can work behind the scenes to pay for this. I think we can work behind the scenes to change it where we can build the support for it, and I think we can work behind the scenes to give something to the President that he can sign and start implementing the month of December into January, and farmers will know whether they are going to plant a corn crop in March or a wheat crop next fall if they haven't been able to plant one this year.

Mr. COBURN. Certainly.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, hopefully, I will not take all that time. I think the American people need to pay attention to what we have just done. The Energy bill, which was actually 41 bills wrapped into one, that we agreed to through unanimous consent, is going to cost the American taxpayer $1.5 billion. The real question is, in light of where we find ourselves--fighting the war, trying to help the people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and running in excess of a $300 billion real deficit this year--should we be spending money on these priorities? A real problem in Washington is getting Congress to make tough decisions about what is a priority. I will spend a few minutes outlining what is in the bill because the American people have no idea what was in the bill. The first thing is $500,000 to study lighthouses in Michigan for tourism. Tourism is already a $16 billion industry in Michigan. There is nothing in the Constitution that would say that is a Federal responsibility. We will do it anyway. Indiana Dunes Visitor Center, $1.2 million to establish a building, construct a theater and a bookstore. Is that a priority right now when we are spending our grandkids' money? We are going to build a bookstore and create a visitor center now when we cannot even pay for the war that we are fighting and we are charging that to our children? There are new national heritage designations. We have a backlog of over $4 billion in repairs to the National Parks we have today. We cannot even take care of the parks we have today, and we are going to create 10 new national heritage centers, spending over $100 million to do so. This bothers me on several fronts. Most important, it isn't a priority. It isn't something we ought to be spending money on right now. We are getting ready to do it. We already have 30 national heritage centers. We are going to delete the resources that are going to those by adding 10 more. Finally, the problem with national heritage areas is they undermine property rights because the money is used to change zoning laws to back the people who have property rights around the national heritages. We are using Federal dollars to create national heritage areas that will undermine individual property rights. That is wrong. The other thing that is in this bill is a study to assess creating four more national heritages. The process is broken under which we bring bills such as this to the Senate, at a time when we cannot afford to pay what we are doing today. We spent a ton of our time on appropriations. After what I was told through all this process, after having written a letter raising objections, meeting with the committee, meeting with our leadership, we had a leadership meeting this week which basically said: If you don't let all of these packages of spending of low priority and no priority go through, the Senate will come to a standstill and we will see everything else blocked by the minority. I believe we ought to be making choices about the right priorities for our country. It is not that heritage areas are wrong. It is that we cannot afford them. We are going to spend money on things we cannot afford and borrow the money from our children and our grandchildren to pay for things that we have to do. It is cheating our children and our grandchildren. It also is beneath the dignity of this Senate. This process has to be fixed. We cannot continue to authorize, authorize, and authorize more spending without doing the hard work, looking at what we have authorized that is not working, is inefficient, or is duplicated. But we continue to do it, and I will continue to stand up for the next 4 years and raise this issue every time. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is an American issue that this Senate does not want to address. We seem to be blinded by the fact that we can just spend and authorize all the money we want and to have no impact. We do not authorize unless we expect it to get spent. With this bill, through the chairman working with us, he agreed to deauthorize over $150 million. That is a start. But other bills that come to the Senate that have new spending in the future ought to meet a test; that is, have we looked at everything else in that area? Is it working well? Are we spending the money wisely? Are we spending it efficiently? Are there programs that are not working that we ought to deauthorize so we can afford to authorize this as a better priority? We are not doing that in this country. That is something the American people deserve to have done rather than to hang our children and grandchildren out to dry with debt. This year, 8 percent of our budget is for interest. In 2035, 29 years from now, 25 percent of our budget is going to be interest. That is $1 trillion. We spent $200 billion this year on interest because we will not be frugal with the American taxpayers' money. There is over $200 billion worth of fraud, waste, and abuse in the Government programs we have today, and we will not go and fix it. Instead, we will spend another $1.5 million because that is easy to do. It sounds good at home, but we will not do what is necessary to secure the financial future of this country. The notice I am placing today is there is a precedent established with this bill. If you want to authorize new programs and you want this Senator not to object or to debate them on the floor, there better be deauthorizations of programs of that committee's jurisdiction before they can expect my vote on a unanimous consent agreement to spend into the future and to undermine the future of the next generation of Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, another key fact: New York State alone spends $25 million a year just on administration of their Ryan White title I funds. That is more money on administration than 38 other States combined, 38 other States spend total on all of it. The Senator from New York showed a chart on AIDS cases and spending. Well, she was right. It was about AIDS cases, but it wasn't about AIDS and HIV-infected individuals. When you look at it in terms of those infected with HIV rather than AIDS cases and when you look at AIDS cases, AIDS cases are based on those who have had AIDS in the past and those who have AIDS today but does not reflect the epidemic. I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article on the housing and rooming in New York for people who are no longer alive but for which they paid for a number of months, a large number of people, where money was wasted.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it is my understanding this is the minority's time. Senator Byrd is coming to the floor, and they graciously granted me time to talk. I wish to address a couple of issues that were raised by the Senator from New York as to the accuracies of the claims that have been made. I think it is real important. I don't doubt for a minute that she genuinely cares for everybody who has HIV in this country. I think she does. I think her perspective on the challenges that face us as a nation in terms of finances is different from mine, and I will grant her that as well. But some of the claims made are not really accurate. I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an article from the New York Times stating specifically money was spent on walking dogs for HIV/AIDS patients, art classes, tickets to Broadway shows, free legal services, haircuts, things that other people can't do in any other place other than New York and California.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, it is disingenuous to use AIDS cases alone to make comparisons. The reason for that is because this is an epidemic. And thanks to the wonderful presence of modern-day medicines, medicines are preventing people who have HIV from ever contracting the fullblown AIDS syndrome. The whole idea behind the bill that Senators Enzi and Kennedy have offered and that has passed the House with over 300 votes is to have the money follow the epidemic. That is what this bill does. There are small declines in the amount of money per person in New York so that marked increases in funds are available for those in the nonmetropolitan areas throughout the South. We know the face of the epidemic is changing. That epidemic says that we ought to be caring for them. The Senator's answer is just spend more money. But last year, when I offered an amendment to add $60 million to the ADAP by cutting pork projects, she voted against it. So you can come to the floor and claim you are for spending more money, but if you don't want to cut out a Japanese garden which is for a Federal Government building which was $60 million so you can put $60 million into lifesaving drugs, some would claim that is not real support for more money. The final point I wish to make is that last year, New York received over $1.4 billion in earmarks, earmarks that aren't a priority, earmarks that aren't necessarily needed in a time of war. There was no offer to cut back on the earmarks for the State of New York to pay for greater care for AIDS patients. Some want to have it both ways: earmarks in the bill that are going to come back to us this November for New York, $600,000 for exhibits, $500,000 for New York City. We have to get a hold of priorities. Is HIV/AIDS a priority? Yes. And can we put more money into it? Yes. But we ought to be making the tough choices. So I would say to my colleague that I have great respect for her desire to make sure everybody is cared for, but I also have a desire to make sure our children are cared for. And we need to pass this bill. It is a fair bill in the long term. We will work hard to make sure the moneys are there. We will work hard. A final point. This new bill directs that 75 percent of the money ought to go to treatment. Less than 50 percent of the money in New York goes for treatment. Fifty percent goes for other things. So we have people living in South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and in other States who are now on a drug waiting list who can't get treatment, and we are quibbling about $300 in other programs--not treatment--other programs these people won't ever have any access to, but yet they can't get drugs. Is it a geographical disagreement? Yes. Everybody who is talking on this is for taking care of this problem. This is a great way. This bill is a good start. Here is the other problem. If we don't pass this bill before October 1, lots of people in New York and in other States will be hurt because of the legislation in the previous Ryan White Act in terms of forcing the redistribution of this. It is my hope we can work this out. I appreciate the Senator's sentiments in terms of her caring for those with HIV, but I know, in fact, what has been offered and worked and gotten through the House is a good approach that takes a little bit from New York, takes a little bit from San Francisco, and gives lifesaving drugs. It doesn't take any lifesaving drugs away from New York or San Francisco or California but gives lifesaving drugs to the people who don't have them today. We ought to be about doing that. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, first, I thank Senator Burr. Senator Burr and I served on the Commerce and Health committees in the House together. He also served on Intelligence in the House, and we have his expertise, his experience, and his tremendous insight into what needs to be done, and the risks. I find it ironic that since we talk about all the issues that face our country in terms of risk, this is potentially one of the most deadly risks our country faces--not just from a natural occurrence such as bird flu but from the intentional use of manipulating biological, of manipulating viruses and bacteria. We know the intent of the people we are now fighting. It is to use fully any means at any time in any way to cause great disruption not only to the lives of Americans but on the economy of America. The fact that someone would hold up this bill to give us the capability to direct resources to become prepared says one of two things: Either they don't believe there is a real threat either from Mother Nature or the leaders of the ``Islamo-fascist'' terrorists who want to attack us today or that they think we are prepared. And we are not prepared. We heard Senator Gregg talk about the vaccine industry. We need a program to redevelop our capabilities. I am a practicing physician. What we do know is vaccine costs are higher today because we have no industry. We have a limited supply of vaccine manufacturers. We need research into vaccines at every area of every virus and every bacteria that could possibly be used against us, and then we need a way to get that out and a way to utilize it. We need research into new antiviral drugs for many of the viruses that could be posed as a biological weapon against this country. I find it ironic, kind of like last night, we are trying to do something for victims of HIV, and those who want to object will not come to the floor and object; they want to hide in secrecy. They do not want to say what is really wrong. What they want to do is stop the process, hold up the process, and not accept the responsibility. There is no one in this Senate who holds up more things than I do, but everybody knows that I am the person doing it and they know why I do it. This is within the responsibility of the Federal Government. It is within the priority of making a decision on where we spend money and what should be spent first. Protecting this country should be one of the No. 1 things we do. Protecting the lives of American citizens should be one of the No. 1 things we do. To not come here and defend why we think this bill is not appropriate, to not come here and stand up and take credit for stopping prevention of accidents and terrorism in this country says a whole lot about the lack of transparency in this Senate. They should come to the Senate and say what is wrong and why they object. We should have a debate. If they want to object after that, let them do it. But to not come to the floor to make a formal objection as a courtesy to Senator Enzi, who does respect the rights of other Members of this Senate, it means those Members who will not come hide in the shadows, and the American people do not get to know what others might think is wrong with proceeding. That does an injustice to the country and to this Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I will try again, reserving my right to object. I will finish this statement one way or the other; otherwise, I will object.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I will repeat today what I said in person and in writing. It authorizes $1.5 billion spending with not one offset and zero consideration for prioritization of how we spend money in this country.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous-consent after the unanimous-consent on this bill that I be allowed 15 minutes to speak on this bill.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. COBURN. I do not intend to object in the final analysis on this, but I think the American public needs to hear how this bill got here and the associated processes with it. I want to share my concerns over it. It will take me a few minutes to do that, but I think it is important that we do this. Before I lift my objection to the authorization in this package, I think it is important to know that this obligates the American people for $1.5 billion. The majority leader originally sought consent for this package in May and again in July. After carefully reviewing the package, considering the oath that I took in January of 2005, I could not give that consent. I immediately sat down with the chairman of the Energy Committee. I outlined in detail my concerns with him. And I am committed by putting my objections in writing, and I did so. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the leader for working with me on getting the requirements of what we need to do to get control of our spending in this country. I also want to thank the House leadership for their commitment in attempting to do that. I had threatened to object to the unanimous consent request that we pass this bill. That is not a desire or something I want to do. But what I do want to do is make sure the money we spend actually goes for Defense. And we had, in both the appropriations bill and in the authorization bill, by a vote of 96 to 1 in this body, that even though we do not report earmarks in the Senate, we do not label them, we do not say who put them, we did have an agreement--with amendments in both those bills--that we will allow the Pentagon to report to the American public on the status of those earmarks and back to us as a Congress whether or not they met the mission of the Defense Department because about 40 percent of them do not. It is all about transparency, the American people seeing where we are spending our money. I appreciate the leaders both here and in the House agreeing to bring this amendment--which was offered and accepted and passed here; and what was thrown out of the conferences--up in the lame-duck session. And given that commitment from both the House leadership and the Senate leadership, I will not object to this bill. I will tell people, other than the earmarks that are in this bill, this is a needed bill, and a lot of the earmarks are appropriate and needed. But the American people ought to be seeing where we are spending the money, and they cannot. This amendment would have allowed them to see that. The agreement of, hopefully, bringing this back, so the American people can actually know where money is spent, I appreciate the leader's help in accomplishing that. I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for all his hard work and dedication on defense in this country and the hard work he put forward. This bill undoubtedly will pass this body, and probably unanimously. I will note that there were several things I have a criticism of in the bill and things I would like to have seen in it, but they are not there. But I also note that we are having trouble maintaining Abrams fighting vehicles, maintaining tanks. As we look at this bill, the $70 billion we are going to have for the war, that is an emergency and it is appropriate, there is no question about it. What is not appropriate in this bill--and this body passed 96 to 1--is the fact that we agreed in this body that whatever the earmarks were in the bill, there ought to be a scorecard on them, on whether the earmarks met the mission of the Defense Department. There are going to be a lot of earmarks that are good, but a lot of them are stinky. There are 2,000 earmarks in the bill directed by Members of Congress--somewhere around $8 billion--and a large portion of those don't have anything to do with the mission of the Defense Department, and they have everything to do with us failing to do the things we should do in terms of prioritizing and making the hard decisions in this country. I am going to vote for the bill because of its importance for our country. But in this bill, you don't know who did the earmarks. They are very cleverly written. You cannot find out exactly what contractor they are going to. You don't know who is responsible. They are not listed. That is OK if we want to do things that way, but it is not OK if you are going to do that and not at least assess the effect of the earmarks. We passed in this Chamber, 96 to 1, that we would, in fact, ask the Defense Department to assist in how effective the earmarks are in accomplishing their mission. My disappointment is, that is not in the bill. If out of that $5 billion to $8 billion worth of earmarks, $2 billion or $3 billion is waste, think what we could have done for the defense of this country. Think what we could have done for those who are depending on us and we cannot fully supply their needs, whether it is early childhood education, Head Start, or the AIDS drug assistance program, just to name a few. We will try again next year. We will try to get the earmarks published, out in the open, and into the sunlight, so the American people can see what we are directing, to whom we are directing it, and who is doing the directing. I will be back on every bill until we come clean with the American people on the political games we are playing with earmarks. We either need to have the agencies say what they are doing with them and whether they meet their mission or we need to be upfront on who is doing what, why, and what for. I appreciate the hard work of the chairman and Senator Inouye in terms of bringing this bill to the floor. More importantly, I appreciate those who dedicate their lives to this country by becoming a part of our Armed Services and setting an example we could very well learn from in this body when it comes to earmarks just by following their example of service, courage, and integrity. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COBURN. Will the chairman yield for a question?