DiFi and Boxer Like To Spend Taxpayers Money

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., -- a family doctor who still delivers babies and prefers to be addressed as Dr. Coburn -- introduced some 19 amendments to cut spending in the emergency measure. A small cadre of senators -- including John McCain, R-Ariz. and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. -- is allied with Coburn, but those good senators could not stop the emergency bill from ballooning by an extra $14 billion. They managed to kill only one measly earmark -- $15 million to promote Gulf Coast seafood.

Coburn also tried to cut $11 million from a $22.5 million earmark to repair 29 sites on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta levees. His bid failed. As the Chronicle reported, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Ca., hectored Coburn for being "penny-wise and pound foolish," while Sen. Dianne Feinstein warned that without these levees, "100,000 people could be killed."

One big problem: Feinstein and Boxer repeatedly vote as if people will die if they don't burn through buckets of tax dollars.

Feinstein voted to throw some $200 million at giant defense contractor Northrop Grumman for Katrina-related losses insurers would not reimburse. She also voted for a $700 million earmark to bankroll the rebuilding of a Mississippi rail line -- that had already been rebuilt after Katrina.

California's Senators like helping Republicans spend money one vote at a time.