Senator Tom Coburn, MD (R-OK) Takes on Government Waste -- Will Obama Listen?

The runaway spending by the Obama Administration and the Democrat controlled Congress shows no end in sight. Did they get the message the people of Massachusetts sent them on January 19, 2010, by electing Republican Scott Brown to the Senate? We are beginning to doubt they heard it all.

If you want to get even more angry read what Dr. Coburn has to say about the national debt limit and how it needs to be raised again after being raised right before Christmas. Senators Tom Coburn and John McCain have been fighting the abuse of taxpayer dollars but in the Halls of Congress too many of our Senators and Representatives are more interested in taking home the pork and earmarks to their district/State then spending our tax dollars wisely.

At one time President Obama was on board with Dr. Coburn in fighting waste when he was a Senator. What happened? Was it all a political ploy for his skinny resume? Time will tell if he tells the Congressional Democrats to get on board with Dr. Coburn's amendment he is submitting on the floor of the Senate today.

Message from Dr. Coburn (E-Newsletter)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hoping you will not notice, Congress is preparing to raise the national debt limit by nearly two trillion dollars, allowing itself to continue an out of control spending spree.

With other issues dominating the news, Congress is quietly working a plan to raise the federal debt ceiling by nearly two trillion dollars, allowing our national debt to rise above $14 trillion.

In Washington, raising the "debt ceiling" has become a fairly routine procedure that allows the federal government to continue to spend far beyond its means. For you and me, and the generations of taxpayers yet to come, it means a growing and nearly unbearable financial burden that threatens our way of life.

The upcoming vote to raise the debt ceiling is the clearest sign yet that Congress truly is not hearing the call from the American people. It signals that Congress is incapable of making priorities, of eliminating wasteful and fraudulent spending, and of ending its out-of control spending habits.

In the midst of the largest deficits in our history, Congress has recently completed appropriations bills for 2010 that increase federal spending across the board by an average of 12 percent.

You may have missed it, but this will actually be the second time in less than a month that Congress will have raised its borrowing limits. On Christmas Eve, as most Oklahomans were dealing with a historic blizzard, the United States Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling by $290 billion.

Sadly, in just a matter of weeks, that new limit is already insufficient.

Let me put this all in perspective:

• The debt limit increase will rank as the largest in American history, shattering the previous record nearly twice over.

• The federal deficit for 2009 surpasses our entire federal budget spending for 1999 by $200 billion.

• The deficit for 2009 is nearly three times our previous record for federal budget deficits.

• Our national debt in 2009 increased by a rate of $4 billion a day. That means every 1.5 days, the federal government is running a deficit equal to the entire annual budget of the State of Oklahoma.

• The national debt, not including obligations to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, now stands at $39,000 per man, woman, and child.

• Currently, Congress borrows 43 cents for every dollar it spends.

Dr. Coburn's op-ed on Government appears in the Washington Examinder and brings details to light that we had forgotten about candidate Obama and his rhetoric on the campaign trail. The American people were told by Obama in his speeches about a 'net spending cut' but it has never materialized. In its place is runaway spending by Obama and Congress.

Obama gets another chance to cut waste
Examiner Editorial January 22, 2010

Can you guess which prominent American politician made the following statement

in 2008:"I will conduct an immediate and periodic public inventory of administrative offices and functions and require agency leaders to work together to root out redundancy. Where consolidation is not the right strategy to improve efficiency, I will improve information sharing and use of common assets to minimize wasteful duplication." If you guessed Republican John McCain, you guessed wrong.

Those words were spoken by then-candidate Barack Obama as part of his promise of "a net spending cut" in Washington. But instead of going down, federal spending has skyrocketed, with the annual deficit tripling to more than $1.4 trillion. This extravagance is among the reasons Massachusetts voters just elected Republican Scott Brown, who promised to support lowering federal taxes and spending.

As Democrats come to grips with the Massachusetts returns, up steps Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who collaborated with then-Sen. Obama on the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, aka "Coburn-Obama." That law led to the creation of USASpending.gov, the searchable Internet site that puts most federal spending within a few mouse clicks for every citizen.


Coburn is offering an amendment today on the Senate floor that will help Obama make good on his promise in 2008 to root out duplication and redundancy in federal spending programs. As a step toward a renewed bipartisanship, Senate Democrats should support Coburn's amendment, as should Obama for the same reason.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

Here are more details from Dr. Coburns E-Newsletter on the details of the amendment:

There is a better way.

As a candidate for president in 2008, Barack Obama pledged to "spend taxpayer money wisely," and specifically to "eliminate wasteful redundancy," stating that "too often, federal departments take on functions or services that are already being done or could be done elsewhere within the federal government more effectively. The result is unnecessary redundancy and the inability of the government to benefit from economies of scale and integrated, streamlined operations."

Yet, for over a year, Congress and the President have been unwilling to consider the elimination of wasteful, duplicative spending.

It is not that hard to find. Over the past few weeks, my office has identified over 600 examples of costly duplication throughout the federal government. For instance:

• There are at least 21 different federal obesity programs located at multiple agencies.

• There are over a dozen federal agencies that maintain independent programs to research and monitor the impact of invasive species, with four independent commissions also added to the mix.

• The federal government maintains 69 programs for early childhood education, over 109 federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) federal programs, and at least 14 programs aimed at Americans studying abroad.

And as the debate to raise the debt ceiling occurs over the next several days, I intend to force the Senate to consider the consolidation of many of these programs.

I will offer an amendment to consolidate nearly 640 overlapping federal programs. These greater efficiencies will save taxpayers an estimated $120 billion.

Further my amendment will require government auditors to routinely scour federal agencies to identify overlapping programs. As hard as it is to believe, no one is performing this task currently.

Also, my amendment will require agencies to return unobligated funds that have been held for more than two years. At the end of the 2009 fiscal year, federal agencies sat on more than $650 billion in unobligated funds. Conservatively, this part of my amendment will save $100 billion.

Finally, I will also rescind the $245 million increase that Congress granted itself for its own internal operations, which included a $72,000 earmark for Congressional leadership staff to purchase new "cell phones and mobile data devices."

For more information on this debate, agency spending, and my amendment, please visit my website at: Click Here

The confidence of the American people in their Congress will never be restored until Members of Congress realize that leadership requires courage and sacrifice. Congress has a responsibility to eliminate wasteful and duplicative spending before it ever asks you and your children to assume still greater debt on its behalf.

Sincerely,

Tom A. Coburn, MD

Taxpayers of America need to get behind this Coburn amendment and let their members of Congress know that it is time to cut spending, duplication, earmarks, and pork. Will they listen? We have our doubts that the Coburn amendment will pass the Democrat Congress but we can always hope that the election of Scott Brown sent a wake-up call to the Democrats on spending our tax dollars. Only time will tell but we are not holding our breath.

Every taxpayer needs to tell their members of Congress to cut spending, duplication, pork projects and earmarks for starters. The American people continue to ask the President and members of Congress to spend our tax dollars wisely and be accountable to the taxpayers but are ignored by the Democrats. Did the Democrats not hear us in the Town Halls and Tea Party rallies starting this summer? The answer to that is "NO" since every member of the Senate Democrats voted for Obamacare which would lead to much higher deficits and less access to medical care.

One glaring example of why we are convinced the Congressional Democrat leadership has not heard the message is the paragraph (highlighted above) of Dr. Coburn's newsletter where they appropriated more money to get new and upgraded cell phones, etc. for leadership.

We have the answer to the Democrats and their runaway spending spree. 'We the People' will be the judge and jury on November 2, 2010, of how the Democrats in the White House and Congress spend our tax dollars in 2010. This also goes for any Republican who decides to participate in the runaway spending spree. Time to hold every member of Congress accountable for our tax dollars.

Thank you Dr. Coburn for representing the people of Oklahoma and America. We are truly to blessed in Oklahoma to have Senators (Coburn and Jim Inhofe) who believe in Government by the People and represent our interests in DC.