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May 11, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
Tom Coburn on spending: ‘A failure of leadership’
America’s overspending problem reflects “a failure of leadership” in Washington, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said today at The Heritage Foundation. “We’re supposed to be making tough decisions,” but today’s elected officials “duck the difficult ones” for political expediency.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) speaks at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday.
Simply making government run more smoothly could go a long way towards turning things around, he said. “If we got rid of the waste and collected the taxes [owed to the government], we’d be running a 50 billion dollar surplus this year.”
The Senator didn’t mince words for his colleagues who are, in his words, denying their “oath to the Constitution.” Responding to a question about the Senate leadership’s proposal to cut funding for the troops to make room for wasteful pork-barrel earmarks, he said “that is a coward’s way of solving this problem.”
Federal officials, both elected and unelected, should ask basic questions about all government programs, he told the overflow audience in Heritage’s Allison Auditorium. “What is its intent? How is it working? Is it accomplishing its goal? And is it doing it as efficiently as possible?”
Even some simple reforms could go a long way towards getting our fiscal house in order. “Earmarks are the gateway drug to overspending” and form a key ingredient of corruption, he explained. “If you eliminate earmarks, all that goes away.”
Lawmakers must start thinking in the long term, Sen. Coburn continued. “What do we want America to look like in 30 years?” If we want to secure the future for our children and grandchildren, he said, “we have to reform social security and we have to reform Medicare.”
“The American people need to tell their representatives to just say no” to new spending, he concluded. “Limited government is not dead. It is asleep—and the American people are going to wake it up”
Can conservatives get through to the GOP?
As Sen. Coburn explained, it is up to citizens to remind their elected leaders to hold to principle. And if the polls are any indication, today’s leaders may be reminded in a big way come November.
Heritage’s Mike Franc tells The Washington Post today that conservatives are growing increasingly disenchanted with the Republican Party and its deviations from conservative principles. He cited his discussions with Heritage members who attended last week’s President’s Club meeting in Washington, DC: “It begins with spending, extends through immigration and results in a sense that we have Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee for the two parties.”
This echoes similar sentiments expressed by The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan in her column today:
Congressional Republicans right now seem just like the liberal Republicans of the great Losing Era of Republican history, circa 1960-80. All the Republican congressmen in those days had good beliefs, and shared them at the Rotary luncheon back home. The government was getting too big and taxes were too high. Then they’d go back to Washington and vote for higher spending and higher taxes. But not as high as the Democrats, they’d point out. Their job was to stand athwart history and cry, “Please slow down just a little bit!”
Republicans on the ground back home got mad. Eventually they threw the old guys out and sent to Washington in 1980 a guy who meant it when he said he’d cut and contain.
We all know who's she's talking about.
The terrorists think they’re losing
About the only people who think the terrorists are winning in Iraq are the cut-and-run crowd on the extreme left. Newly released documents captured by the military suggest increased pessimism among the terrorists that they can win. They admit that they “are not considered more than a daily annoyance to the Shiite government.” In fact, the terrorists believe they are growing weaker: “every year is worse than the previous year, as far as the mujahedeen’s control and influence over Baghdad.”
This is why, as Heritage’s James Phillips explained last year, America must remain firm in Iraq. Our goal in Iraq is victory, and a policy that reduces the power and influence of the radical Islamists is a step towards that goal. Policies based purely on political expedience, like proposals to withdraw from Iraq, will re-energize the terrorists and allow them to claim victory.
Our principles aren’t for sale
Heritage Vice President John Von Kannon sent a strong letter to The Washington Post yesterday explaining that The Heritage Foundation does not compromise on its principles—for any reason.
An article in the newspaper had suggested that Heritage changed its position on an issue after a donor threatened to yank his funding. But as Von Kannon explained, “The Heritage Foundation refused to buckle,” leading the donor to withdraw his support.
“At Heritage, policy positions never have been and never will be for sale,” he concluded. “To imply otherwise is insulting and wrong.”
Heritage gets results
A State Department official recently sent the following to The Heritage Foundation: “When my colleagues give marks to the various think tanks and advocacy groups around town, Heritage consistently gets the highest marks for professionalism and responsiveness.”
In other news
- Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took a stand for spending restraint today when he announced that the House of Representatives would reject any pork-barrel spending in the emergency spending bill for Iraq, Afghanistan and Katrina relief. “The House is committed to supporting the President’s call to not spend one dollar more than what he called for,” he said.
- Just three days into his job as White House press secretary, Tony Snow has begun fighting back against liberal media bias, taking swipes at The New York Times, CBS News and others for their misleading coverage of the economy and similar issues. Unfortunately, he’s also come to the defense of the Medicare prescription drug program, which even liberals now recognize is fundamentally unsound (though their proposed “solutions” would only make things worse).
- Relying on unnamed sources, USA Today has revealed the existence of a top-secret National Security Agency program which tracks information about telephone calls but does not record or monitor them. Revealing top-secret national security programs remains illegal.
- Britain’s Conservatives won a stunning victory in local elections last week, suggesting that the party may unseat Labour in the next national election. Since the Blair government may not last, Heritage’s Nile Gardiner says, Washington should strengthen its ties with the Tories.
- The private company that sets Internet standards has rejected calls to add a .xxx domain-name extension (like .com or .net) exclusively for pornography.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Tuesday, May 16 at 10:30am, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Ambassador Said T. Jawad of Afghanistan, Ambassador Shamsher Chowdhury of Bangladesh and Brad Figel from Nike will discuss why encouraging free enterprise is a better solution to Third World poverty than direct subsidies.
- On Wednesday, May 24 at 11:00am, Col. Virgil T. Deal, commander of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, will join Brig. Gen. William Leszczynski of the American Battlefield Monuments Commission and Joyce Raezer of the National Military Families Association to discuss how to sustain the morale, character, and esprit de corps of America’s Armed Forces.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
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