This vote was on whether to send the bill that allocates funding for agriculture programs in fiscal 2010 back to the Appropriations Committee to slash its funding.  Tom Coburn, R-Okla., made the motion and asked that the bill be returned to the Senate floor at a funding level that is only 2 percent more than what Congress enacted in fiscal 2009 for comparable programs.  As written the Senate bill would provide $2.9 billion more than in fiscal 2009, an 11 percent increase.

Coburn said it is “obscene” and “irresponsible” “that we will not relate to what the rest of the American people are going through, and we have bill after bill after bill, and in a time when our country is on its back and our budget deficits have never been so high, we are going to increase discretionary spending at a rate we have not seen in 10 years in this country.”

“All this motion to commit says is, bring it back to us with a realistic expectation of what families are having to do,” Coburn said.

Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said the bill does contain an increase in spending over the previous yaer, but that 90 percent of that spending is for food stamps, drug safety, rural rental housing and other societal safety net programs. 

“These are mandatory programs that reflect the state of our economy and serve as a very basic human safety net,” Kohl said.

The motion was rejected 32-65.  Of Republicans present, 30 voted for the motion and 10 voted against it.  All but two Democrats present voted against the motion.  The end result is that the motion to send the bill back to committee to slash funding was rejected and debate on the agriculture spending bill continued.