Russell Carries Forward On Coburn’s Fight Against Waste
A shrimp on a treadmill is Coburn’s lasting legacy of fighting government waste
by Justin Wingerter, NewsOK.com
On Tuesday afternoon in Oklahoma City, U.S. Rep. Steve Russell sat before a crowd of like-minded fiscal conservatives and spoke about government waste.
“I had a lady, God bless her, from the National Science Foundation … she came in and she tried to make a compelling argument for why we needed shrimp-on-treadmill studies. I was not convinced,” Russell said.
The line garnered laughter from many in the crowd. John Tidwell, state director for Americans for Prosperity and host of the conversation, asked what the scientist’s argument was.
“That we could learn something from it,” the Republican congressman said to more laughter.
Tidwell asked, “That the shrimp could learn something from it?” and again there was laughter before Russell reached the moral of the story, the point he was trying to make.