Washington, D.C. – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today celebrated Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) successful removal of a $1 million wasteful earmark in H.R. 3043, the fiscal 2008 Labor-HHS-Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

Sen. Coburn’s amendment eliminated $1 million targeted to the Bethel Performing Arts Center Museum in New York, which includes a tribute to the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and transferred it to the Maternal and Child Health block grant program.  Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the earmark along with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), attempted to table or kill the amendment, but was rebuffed 52-42.  The amendment was then passed on a voice vote.

Sen. Coburn said in a statement, “I’m pleased my colleagues took a bold stand today in defense of common sense and rejected the self-interested parochial politics that have disillusioned millions of Americans.  Maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for taxpayers.”

CCAGW President Tom Schatz quipped, “Now everyone knows what the words ‘everywhere there was song and celebration’ from ‘Woodstock’ really mean.  Taxpayers are dancing in the streets and saying ‘yippee’ over the defeat of this hippie earmark.”

CCAGW supported the Bethel Museum amendment as well as three others by Sen. Coburn, including one to eliminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Entertainment Education program, an ombudsman program, and prevent the CDC from purchasing additional rotating pastel lights, zero-gravity chairs, or dry heat saunas for the agency’s fitness center.

The Senate version of H.R. 3043 contains more than 800 earmarks that will cost taxpayers more than $400 million.  Many have little to do with the missions and priorities at the various departments funded in this appropriations bill.  The Washington Times reported on October 15 that senators earmarked $42 million in healthcare construction projects for their alma maters, including October Porker of the Month Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-Ala.) $11 million project for the school from which he graduated, the University of Alabama.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.