Senate defeats Coburn effort to cut waste

The Senate on Thursday defeated an attempt by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to force the Obama administration to cut government waste by eliminating duplicative programs.

Coburn’s amendment to the transportation bill got 52 votes and 46 senators voted against it. Under a agreement between Senate leaders, the amendment needed 60 votes to pass.

Most Democrats voted against the measure, but Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) were among those voting in favor.

The amendment orders the government to act on two recent Government Accountability Office reports that identified hundreds of billions of dollars in federal duplication and lost revenue.

Within 150 days, the administration would have to identify to Congress programs to cut as specified in the report.

The spending on those programs would be cut from this year’s appropriations budget. If the administration fails to act, $10 billion would be cut automatically.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) led the opposition to the measure. He argued the measure was a backdoor revision of last summer’s debt-ceiling spending deal.

“Sen. Coburn claims that the purpose of this amendment is to reduce duplicative programs, but in reality the amendment would require a $10 billion reduction in the existing discretionary caps, regardless of whether there actually are $10 billion in discretionary savings from consolidating duplicative programs that can be identified only by OMB,” Inouye said on the floor.

“Further, the $10 billon figure is completely arbitrary and almost certainly will not be reached. In fact, there is no methodology or specificity that verifies there are in fact $10 billion in discretionary savings to be found,” he said.