Two Oklahoma Projects Made Senator Tom Coburn's Wastebook 2011 Report

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has released his new oversight report, "Wastebook 2011" that highlights over $6.5 billion in taxpayer dollars going to projects that are unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority.

Two items on the list target two projects in Oklahoma.

Coburn says over the past 12 months, politicians have debated and lamented about how to reign in the federal government's out of control spending.

"Congress cannot even agree on a plan to pay for the costs of extending jobless benefits to the millions of Americans who are still out of work. Yet, thousands of millionaires are receiving unemployment benefits and billions of dollars of improper payments of unemployment insurance are being made to individuals with jobs and others who do not qualify. And remember those infamous bridges to nowhere in Alaska that became symbols of government waste years ago? The bridges were never built, yet the federal government still spent more than a million dollars just this year to pay for staff to promote one of the bridges," said Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. 

Number 8 on Coburn's list is the use of $529,689 in federal highway funds to transform an abandoned rock house into a visitors center on the Talimena Scenic Drive near Talihina.

And number 65, $93,000 in federal funding to conduct a state-wide advertising campaign to promote Oklahoma's farmers markets.

Coburn says in all, the Oklahoma Agriculture Department received $380,851 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.

The monies were used to fund a study on colored shade cloths on vegetable production, educating children on the benefits of specialty crops and determine the economic impact of Oklahoma's wine industry.

Read Coburn's Wastebook 2011 report.

7/21/2011 Related Story: Senator Tom Coburn Critical Of Federal Spending In Oklahoma