This was a vote on an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would have required the Obama administration to propose a plan to save taxpayers $7 billion by consolidating federal government programs with “duplicative and overlapping missions.” This amendment was offered to legislation that would provide $7 billion for disaster relief for areas of the country that had suffered damage from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. (That bill also reimposed sanctions on Myanmar that had expired in July, 2011.)

Coburn urged support for his amendment: “I don't think there is a large disagreement that we ought to take care of the areas that are the federal responsibility in the respective states for the extreme weather…However, the question is, given where we stand as a country, do we just borrow the money to do that and add it to the debt or is the government running so efficiently that we can't cut something else and make a choice about how we pay for it?...the assumption is that if we pass this bill, we will go and borrow approximately $7 billion more in the international markets. What I would put forward is that we know we have plenty of areas we can cut now that are not effective, not efficient, that are wasteful, that are duplicative, and we would not have to borrow that additional money. The easiest thing in the world is to spend somebody else's money. And what we are doing with this bill by not paying for it is actually asking our grandchildren to pay for an obligation we have today.”

No senators spoke in opposition to Coburn’s amendment.

The vote on Coburn’s amendment was 54-45. 47 Republicans and 7 Democrats voted “yea.” 45 Democrats—including a majority of progressives—voted “nay.” While a majority of senators supported this amendment, a unanimous consent agreement (literally, an agreement reached among all senators) required a 60-vote majority for passage. Thus, the amendment was rejected.  As a result, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have required the Obama administration to propose a plan to save taxpayers $7 billion by consolidating federal government programs with “duplicative and overlapping missions.”