They kept saying that Tom Coburn was retiring from the U.S. Senate, but some of us didn't want to believe it. Not even after he said so himself.
Nah. He'll stick around. There are already plenty of empty suits (and pantsuits) in the United States Senate these days, and Senator Coburn would be much missed. His constituents, and the rest of America, won't let him leave. They'll beg him to stay.
But word is that, yes, our neighbor over in Oklahoma is indeed walking away from national politics. Not that anybody could blame a soul for leaving Washington on the first, or last, plane out. But some of us will miss his Wastebooks.
His colleagues on the other side of the aisle called Tom Coburn "Dr. No," as if that were some kind of insult. In his case, it was high praise. The doctor--he really is an M.D.--actually seemed to think a large part of his job in Washington was to stop bad things from happening. And his Wastebooks were instrumental in doing just that.
Every year Senator Coburn and his staff would put together lists of the most idiotic spending proposals that those burrowing away in the nooks and crannies of a vast federal government could manage to conjure up and get approved. Some of the line items you would read about in the Wastebooks defied belief. At least if you didn't know how Washington works, or, in these cases, doesn't. Not very well. Not very well at all.
Reading some of the entries in the senator's Wastebooks would make any sentient adult stop in amazement and just wonder: Did a real live "public servant," a federal employee, maybe a supervisor in charge of some budget in some government agency, really sign off on that? Did he, she or it think that particular idea was a wise use of the taxpayers' dollars? Or does anybody in government care any more?
Wastebook helped end many a ridiculous government program, however inexhaustible the list. This year, Wastebook 2014 was Senator Coburn's last. Many of us are going to miss it.
Over the years, the senator and his people pored over the fine print in the federal budget to find an assortment of expensive outrages hidden there. Like tax breaks for Nevada brothels; a $325,525 government study to prove having a calmer wife leads to a happier marriage; financing for a million-dollar bus stop in Virginia; another $325,000 for a robosquirrel to test the interaction between squirrels and snakes; a $1.5-million study dedicated to making a better computer gaming stick; another cool mil to find out if male fruit flies like older females or the trophy types . . . and so ridiculously on. And on.
Our favorite nugget showed up back in 2010, when, according to that year's Wastebook, the National Science Foundation spent more than $200,000 to study why politicians make vague statements. Maybe because they can't explain $200,000 studies like that one?
This year's lowlights:
--The folks running the National Institutes of Health spent more than $380,000 to give Swedish massages to rabbits. For what purpose, we can't even imagine. More accurately, we're afraid to imagine. (Talk about stupid pet tricks.) But let it be noted, as Senator Coburn did, that the NIH has a $30 billion budget. Even while the director of said agency says a lack of funding has prevented that oh-so-prestigious organization from finding a vaccine for Ebola. The more waste is discovered in that federal agency, the higher the appropriation it seeks. For in American bureaucracy, nothing may succeed like failure.
--Last year the brass at the Pentagon spent a billion dollars, with a B, to destroy $16 billion worth of ammunition. Yes, a billion dollars to blow up ammo they'd previously spent $16 billion to buy. Only in the United States military.
--And this report just in from the Fish and Wildlife Service: It has a program to pay people to . . . watch grass grow. That's not a joke. Except maybe on the taxpayers. They might feel relieved to learn that this program cost "only" $10,000.
Every now and then, on exceptional occasion, Senator Coburn's researchers have come across somebody in the federal government who actually has a sense of shame. That's why the State Department does not have a foosball table big enough for humans to play on at its embassy in Belize. When the senator's staffers started asking about it, the idea, and the line-item in the budget, suddenly disappeared. How 'bout that?
Score for taxpayers.
Now this senator, watchdog, and all-around gadfly is retiring. He has earned the thanks and good wishes of We the People.
But is there any good reason why his Wastebooks must retire with him? Let's hope that some other senator picks up his Wastebook, and keeps that one government program going. Without it, we might still be paying millions for pensions to dead federal employees (Wastebook 2010) and hundreds of thousands to study cow burps (Wastebook 2012).
Maybe a United States senator from Arkansas can pick up the tradition. It's doubtful soon-to-be just plain Dr. Coburn would mind. After all, we're neighbors.
Editorial on 10/24/2014