Scientists didn't like when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) turned his gaze on rampant spending waste at the National Science Foundation but locking in on waste - military, science funding, you name it - is what he does, in true conservative fashion.
It's safe to assume the science community will like cutting waste that does not involve shrimp on treadmills more. He found millionaires received $74 million worth of unemployment checks from 2005 to 2009, $316 million in farm subsidies from 2003 to 2009; $89 million for the preservation of lands on ranches and estates in 2009 and 2010; and $7.5 million to compensate for property damages caused by disaster.
Subsidies, well what to do? I don't like them but if we're going to fund stupid ideas like solar power companies for friends of Pres. Obama, and since 85% of the entire world's agriculture subsidies are European, we can't tell millionaires who own dairy farms they are ghetto-ized out of the system created to protect American farmers from overseas dumping. Paying a rich farmer isn't like the Queen of the Netherlands having her Italian vineyard subsidized by Italian peasants.
Ditto with property damage. If it's a disaster area, there is no income filter on who gets some reimbursement. And voluntary easements are something progressives proposed as a way to get more land protected.
Coburn's stance will be met positively by people already inclined to dislike the people he is going after, just like his stance was reviled when his fact-finding stabbed at funding sacred cows.
GOP sen.: Feds send checks to millionaires for not working By Alexander Bolton, TheHill.com
