A PROFILE OF PORKBUSTERS HERO TOM COBURN:

Coburn continues to make headway, if not achieve outright victories. While his campaign against the Bridge To Nowhere lost by over 60 votes, his effort to eliminate the “Railroad to Nowhere” lost by only a handful of votes, and the same with his recent effort to remove approximately $100 million in federal support for the parties’ political conventions. It is no longer possible to view his efforts as fruitless or quixotic. His strategy has been to offer amendment after amendment seeking to highlight and then remove these spending abuses, and it has brought about consequences. As Fraser describes it, “He is trying to force them on each and every vote to have an honest debate.” In many instances Coburn’s efforts are designed simply to force the Senate to follow its own rules and provide adequate time for consideration of these spending bills. According “NZ Bear,” blogger and co-founder of the Internet watchdog alliance Porkbusters, “He is the one who has been willing to stand up and just keep reminding the Congress of their responsibility to behave like adults, over and over again.”

More important, perhaps, than the daily fight over earmarks was his championing of S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Co-sponsored by Barak Obama, S. 2590 passed in September 2006 and established an online, public search-engine and database to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans. Coburn says that greater transparency will bring “more accountability” and that media, watchdog groups, and political challengers will have the “tool” they never had to demonstrate the profligacy of government. As Schatz describes it, “The way to change the whole process is to change how taxpayers view it.” By exposing the details of government spending and grants, Coburn and his supporters hope to provide the public and political challengers with political ammunition to finally return rationality to the budgeting process.

Let’s hope.