There's At Least One...

From Michelle Malkin:

The good news is that conservative stalwart Sen. Tom Coburn is looking out for you.

The bad news is that Dingy Harry and the Dems have wasted no time wasting more of your money. One of the first orders of business of the 111th Congress will be to pass a massive omnibus lands bill. Sen. Coburn reports:

"The decision by Senate leaders to kick off the new Congress with an earmark-laden omnibus lands bill makes a mockery of voters' hopes for change. This package represents some of the worst aspects of congressional incompetence and parochialism. Congress should spend the next few weeks holding hearings on an economic stimulus package and identifying areas of the budget to cut to pay for that proposal. Instead, the Senate is set to resume business as usual," Dr. Coburn said.

I'm excerpting a speech Sen. Coburn gave on the Senate floor yesterday, which applies not only to this bill, but to the stimulus package and all the past and future mega-bailouts to come that amount to generational theft.

Listen up, Washington:

The reason we have a 9-percent approval rating is because we are not trusted. We are addicts. We are self-indulgent addicts over our power.

My query to the body and to the American people is, will you hold us accountable? You have to do an intervention with us, each one of us, every time we are home: Are you being a good steward with the limited dollars we have? Are you making choices that may not look good for you as a politician but are truly the best choice for the country? Are you putting yourself second and our country first? Are you acting as a statesman or are you acting as somebody who wants to get reelected?

The real paradox is, with trust comes confidence. With that confidence comes the involvement and support of the very people we actually do represent.

We have a choice. I hope the introduction of this bill does not portend that we will not take President-elect Obama's lead and offer the American people real hope, real change, that we will get away from our addicted self-indulgence to look good at home and start making the hard, tough decisions that will right our ship and put our country first. Anything less than that says the people who took their oath today and those of us who have taken it before, we violate it. We raise our hand and put one on the Bible and say we will uphold it, but then when it comes to the first tough choice, look good at home or do what is in the long-term best interests of the country, we swivel, we back down, and we opt for the short term, the self-aggrandizement, and the stroke on our own back. We are better than that. The people in this body are better than that.

My hope is we can prove to the American people over the next 6 to 9 months that we got the message, that it is about making the tough choices. It is about doing what is right in the long term. It is not about what makes us or our party look good; it is about what is best for the country as a whole.

Too bad Coburn isn't President - we might actually get things back into shape if he was.  *sigh*  At least we have a handful of good ones...it's slightly better than none.

There's my two cents.