Coburn to Expose Highway Hypocrisy Today

As the nation this morning honors the memory of those who lost their lives six years ago, and as the national media covers Gen. David Petraeus' second day of testimony about the situation in Iraq, a significant and telling battle in the war against wasteful spending is likely to be waged in the U.S. Senate.

With the Senate considering this year's transportation appropriations bill today, Sen. Tom Coburn is planning to offer a couple of amendments designed to expose the hypocrisy of those who are using the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota to push for higher gasoline taxes and/or a huge increase in funding for bridge and general highway infrastructure spending.

Of course, we all know that the problem isn't that Washington is collecting too little in taxes -- revenues are at an all-time high.  The problem is that they've been spending too much highway money on wasteful pet projects like the Bridge to Nowhere, bike paths, light rail projects that nobody uses, etc.

So Coburn is planning to offer amendments that would block all transportation earmarks that fund pet projects that have nothing to do fixing deficient roads or bridges.  Don't expect the amendments to be adopted, but do expect AFP and other pro-taxpayer groups to use the votes to expose the hypocrisy of Members of Congress who vote against them, then call for big gas tax increases because there's supposedly no money left to keep bridges from falling down.

Hypocrisy Revealed kicks off on C-Span 2 at 10:30 am.  You can watch online here.

UPDATE 2:01 p.m. -- We've sent a letter to every U.S. Senator informing them that we're going to consider the vote on Sen. Coburn's "No Pork -- Bridges" amendment an official Key Vote for Prosperity.  You can view our Key Vote alert here.  Also, we're hearing that a vote is expected at about 4:00 p.m. today.

UPDATE 5:40 p.m. -- The Senate has voted to table, or kill, Sen. Coburn's "No Pork -- Bridges" amendment on an 82-14 vote.  Check out the roll call tally here, and read more about the other amendments Coburn plans to offer this evening here.