Even before the Tea Party candidates are coronated, their Senate minions who are already there are doing their work:
Nearly nine months after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians still live on the streets between piles of rubble. One reason: Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived.So Coburn thinks the Ambassador should spend all of his time working with US AID. Now, even if that made sense, I'd imagine the people who staff the Embassy in Port-au-Prince already have a lot to do with little time to focus on specific contracts with AID, so the additional seven people requested by the State Department would seem to be necessary.[snip]
It took until May for the Senate to pass a supplemental request for the Haiti funds and until July for the House to do the same. The votes made $917 million available but did not dictate how or when to spend it. Without that final step, the money remains in the U.S. Treasury.
Then came summer recess, emergencies in Pakistan and elsewhere, and the distractions of election politics.
Now the authorization bill that would direct how the aid is delivered remains sidelined by a senator who anonymously pulled it for further study. Through calls to dozens of senators' offices, the AP learned it was Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma.
"He is holding the bill because it includes an unnecessary senior Haiti coordinator when we already have one" in U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten, Coburn spokeswoman Becky Bernhardt said.
The bill proposes a new coordinator in Washington who would not oversee U.S. aid but would work with the USAID administrator in Washington to develop a rebuilding strategy. The position would cost $1 million a year for five years, including salaries and expenses for a staff of up to seven people.
Apparently not to Senator Coburn, who himself has a payroll which exceeds $2 million a year. He begrudges paying a senior Haiti Coordinator and his/her staff $1 million a year, all the while paying out $1,284,172 to 51 people on his own staff for the fiscal period 10/31/09 to 3/31/10.
I love the smell of hypocrisy in the Senate.
Posted by Linkmeister at September 29, 2010 02:03 PM | TrackBack