Six conservative U.S. senators voiced concerns Friday over the substance and procedural context of controversial legislation to block Internet piracy, noting potential economic damages and free speech restrictions the legislation might impose. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Tom Coburn (R-OK), sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Friday expressing their concerns. The letter, whose signatories include the ranking Republicans on the Budget, Finance, and Judiciary Committees, warns of “breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity …
Senators Tom Coburn (R–OK) and Joseph Lieberman (I–CT) unveiled a major Medicare proposal. Based on preliminary estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the proposal would reduce total Medicare spending by more than $600 billion in the next 10 years and cut the program’s long-term (75-year) unfunded liability by approximately $10 trillion. This is a serious start. Without remedial action, Medicare faces a long-term unfunded liability of almost $37 trillion. The Medicare hospitalization trust fund is running a deficit of $34.1 billion this year alone. While the program has …
House Republicans could fulfill their Pledge to America promise of cutting $100 billion simply by eliminating duplicative government programs. That’s the startling news from a new Government Accountability Office report today that exposes widespread waste in the federal government. GAO’s 345-page report (PDF) was initiated more than a year ago when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) forced a 94-0 Senate vote on the issue. Now, each year GAO must identify federal programs, agencies, offices and initiatives with duplicative goals and activities. It’s up to Congress to act, but given the recent …
In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, numerous unemployed but hard-working Americans have turned to federal job training programs. These programs, held up as a beacon of good government by politicians, are actually riddled with fraud, waste and mismanagement, according to a new report from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). The most egregious accounts in Coburn’s “Help Wanted” report include a program that exposed youth to asbestos “under the guise of involving students in work experience and job training programs,” a shopping spree by a job …
Sen.Tom Coburn (R-OK) put out a report today documenting one billion in your tax dollars given to dead people. Zombies only exist on Halloween, yet dead people received checks from the federal government in the form of stimulus checks, aid to heat homes, housing subsidies, claims for prescription drugs, and medical supplies. Dead people are haunting the federal government and taking money away from the living. As Coburn writes in the report, with a $1.3 trillion deficit for his year and a $13.6 trillion amassed debt as a nation, tax …
Just the other day, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) objected to Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) move to force the reading of Bernie Sander’s (I–VT) 767-page amendment (thankfully defeated) to create a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care system. Republicans plan to force a reading of the final (as yet un-released) Reid health care legislation currently being debated in the Senate, a move Democrats will assuredly try to block. When ordinary Americans sign their tax forms and thereby fund the federal government, they declare under penalties of perjury that they have read the document. …
After watching the Senate Finance Committee work its will on health care reform, it is clear that the final stretch will have little to do with good policy and lots to do with cutting special deals with drug companies, favorite states, and the like. The debate is a jarring reminder that the current Congress views health care as a giant pie (indeed 16-17 percent of our entire economy). Of course, government does not make the pie, it merely cuts the pieces. The folks back home still want an answer to …
Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John Barrasso (R-WY) talk about the Medicare cuts used to fund Obamacare in the latest Senate Doctor’s Show: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHB6xDkQVKE#t=7m32s[/youtube] President Obama has claimed that he will fund his new plan in part by preventing waste through Medicare. Cutting waste out of the system would be good policy. We are all for slowing the growth of Medicare, but those savings should be used for deficit reduction, not another entitlement.
President Barack Obama consistently accuses Americans who are skeptical about his health care plan of supporting the stats quo. Like much of what Obama says about health care, this simply isn’t true. Whole Foods co-founder and CEO has a must-read op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal outlining eight market friendly health care reforms including: Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax …
Courtesy of Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) new report, “100 Stimulus Projects: A Second Opinion”, here are the Top Ten most dubious Obama stimulus projects: “Free” Stimulus Money Results in Higher Utility Costs for Residents of Perkins, Oklahoma FutureGen: The Stimulus Earmark that Wasn’t, Becomes the Costliest Pork Project in History Little-Used “Shovel-Ready” Bridges in Rural Wisconsin Given Priority Over Widely Used Structurally Deficient Bridges $800,000 for little-used Johnstown, Pennsylvania airport to repave a back-up runway; the “Airport for Nobody” Has Already Received Tens of Millions in Taxpayer dollars $3.4 Million …
