A United States Senator from Oklahoma says four Missouri projects are among his 100 most wasteful federal stimulus projects in the country. Our senators are split on the smallest of the projects—the one getting the most attention thanks to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn who is getting a lot of ink for putting a 463-thousand dollar restroom replacement program in the Mark Twain National Forest on his bad-100 list. Senator Bond says the toilet project is an "outrage.," Senator McCaskill says Coburn’s criticism of the program is a "gotcha political thing."
She says the replacement of 25 to 40 year old wooden privies had been approved before the stimulus bill was passed…and the project was competitively bid. She says the new facilities will be stand-alone concrete structures with separate facilities for men and women and will be handicapped accessible. "If you’ve been in the Mark Twain Forest and you need to go to the bathroom , I don’t know that it’s so silly," she says.
In all, the stimulus bill will pay for 2.7-million dollars worth of maintenance and improvements in Missouri’s largest forest. McCaskill admits she was suspicious of funding the project at first, but changed her mind about it after learning the facts.
Upload portion of McCaskill teleconference (8:30 mp3)
