Senator Tom Coburn’s Farewell Address to the Senate

Below is an excerpt from Senator Tom Coburn's Farewell Address to the United States Senate. Every American should read and understand it.

To those of you through the years whom I have offended, I truly apologize. I think none of that was intended because I actually see things differently. You see, I believe our Founders were absolutely brilliant, far smarter than we are. I believe the enumerated powers meant something. They were meant to protect us against what history says always happens to a Republic. They have all died. They have all died.

So the question is, what will happen with us? Can we cheat history? Can we do something better than was done in the past?

I honestly believe we can, but I do not believe we can if we continue to ignore the wisdom of our founding documents. So when I have offended, I believe it has been on the basis of my belief in Article I, Section 8. I think we can stuff that genie back into the bottle. E pluribus unum. "Out of many, one." But you do not have one unless you have guaranteed the liberty of the many. When we ignore what the Constitution gave us as a guideline, to protect the individual liberties, to limit the size and scope of the Federal Government so the benefits of freedom and liberty can be expressed all across this land; that is when we get back to solving our problems.

I think about my father--he had a fifth-grade education -- a great believer in our country. He would not recognize it today. The loss of freedom we have imposed by the arrogance of an all-too-powerful

Federal Government, ignoring the wisdom and writing of our Founders that said: Above all, we must protect the liberty of the individual and recognize that liberty is given as a God-given right.

So my criticism isn't directed personally, it is because I truly believe that freedom gains us more than anything we can plan here. I know not everybody agrees with me, but the one thing I do know is that our Founders agreed with me. They had studied this process before.

They know what happens when you dominate from a central government. This didn't mean intentions are bad; the intentions are great. The motivations of people in this body are wonderful, but the perspective on how we do it and what the long-term consequences are of how we do it really do matter.

We see ourselves today with a President whom we need to be supporting and praying for, with an economy that is not doing what it could be doing, and we need to be asking the question, Why? Is there a fundamental reason? And there is.

We are too much involved in the decision-making in the economy in this country that inhibits the flow of capital to the best return, which inhibits the growth of wealth, which leaves us at a standard of living the same as what we had in 1988. That is where we are, yet it doesn't have to be that way.

I am going to read some words we have all heard before, but they are worth re-reading. We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...All of us. ...that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness--I look at legislation and say how does that have an impact on those two things, and too often it has a negative impact.

...That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it. I don't know where we are on that continuum, but I know we are not where we were intended to be in the vision of our Founders, and we are suffering, no matter where you are in the country, as a consequence.

We established the Constitution to try to protect those rights and to delineate those rights. We put in the limitation of the government and outlined the rights of each individual citizen upon which the government shall not infringe. Yet what comes out of this body and this Congress every day, to my chagrin, infringes those guaranteed rights.

Every Member of the Senate takes the same oath and this is where I differ with a lot of colleagues. Let me read the oath, because I think it is part of the problem.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Your State isn't mentioned one time in that oath. Your whole goal is to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its liberties. It is not to provide benefits for your state. That is where we differ. That is where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It is nice to be able to do things for your state, but that isn't our charge. Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the Constitution and ensuring the liberty that is guaranteed there is protected and preserved.

The magic number in the Senate is not 60, the number of Senators needed to end debate, and it is not 51, a majority. The most important number in the Senate is one--one Senator. That is how it was set up.

That is how our Founders designed it, and with that comes tremendous amounts of responsibility, because the Senate has a set of rules or at least that gives each individual Member the power needed to advance, change, or stop legislation. That is a tool that has to be mentored and refined and wise in its application.

Most of the bills that pass the Senate never receive a vote. We all know that. It is a vast majority of the bills. They are approved by unanimous consent. It only takes a single Senator to withhold consent to stop most legislation.

There are many other rules and procedures a Member can use. They are often referred to as arcane, but that is only because they are rarely used. They are not arcane. They were designed to protect liberty, to secure liberty, to make sure that we don't all follow history and fail.

Every Senator has the power to introduce legislation and, until recently, offer amendments. No single Senator should be allowed to decide what the rights of another Senator should be. That is tyranny. It has nothing to do with the history and classics of the Senate.

To exercise the rights we have been entrusted with, we must respect the rights of others. That is the true power of our Constitution. That is also the true power of the Senate. It is what binds our Nation together, and it is what is needed to make the Senate work properly again.

The Senate was designed uniquely to force compromise, not to force gridlock--to force compromise. One Senator had the power to stop everything for the first 100 years, but it didn't because compromise was the goal.

Our Founders understood there were many differences between the states—in size, geography, economy, and opinions. They united the states as one country based upon the premise that the many are more powerful than the one. As Senators, we have to follow this example. I have not always done that; I admit that freely to you. I should have. As Senators, we must follow the example, stand for our principles, but working to find those areas of agreement where compromise can be found to unite and move our country forward. My colleague Senator Carper has my admiration because he has worked tirelessly the past 2 years to try to accomplish that.. . .

To know how to reach a destination, you must first know where you are, and without oversight--effective, vigorous oversight--you will never solve anything. You cannot write a bill to fix an agency unless you have an understanding of the problem, and you can only know this by conducting oversight, asking the tough questions, holding the bureaucrats accountable, find out what works and what doesn't, and know what has already seen done.

Effective oversight is an effective tool to expose government overreach and wasteful spending, but it also markedly exposes where we lose our liberty and our essential freedoms. I have had some fun through the years, taken some criticism for the waste vote--and it is opinion, I agree. Everybody who has seen the waste book has a great defense of why it is there. But the real question is will we become efficient at how we spend the money of the American people?

This is a big enterprise. There is no other enterprise anywhere close to it in size in the world. It is not manageable unless we all try to agree to manage it and have the knowledge of it.

I think there ought to be 535 voice votes every year, and then we ought to have the debate about where we are not spending money wisely and have the information at our fingertips so we make great decisions because, quite frankly, we don't make great decisions because we don't have the knowledge. Then what knowledge we do have we transfer to a bureaucracy to make decisions about it when we should have been guiding those things.

True debates about national priorities would come about if we did effective oversight. It is the Senate, once hailed as the world's greatest deliberative body, where these differences should be argued.

Our differences should be resolved through civil discourse so they are not settled in the street. Just as the Constitution provides for majority rule and our democracy while protecting the rights of the individual, the Senate must return to the principles to bring trust of the electorate, and it can.

Our Founders believed that protecting the minority views and minority rights in the Senate was essential to having a bicameral legislature that would give us balance and not move too quickly against the very fundamental principles upon which this country was based--and not out of guessing, but out of thorough knowledge of what had happened in the past. We have to be very careful to guard both minority rights and the rule of law. . . .

I would end with one final comment. The greatest power I have not used as a Senator, which I would encourage you to use in the future, is the power of convening. You have tremendous power to pull people together because of your position. . . .

Again, I end by saying a great thank you to my family for their sacrifice, a great thank you to the wonderful staff I have, and a thank you to each of you for the privilege of having been able to work for a better country for us all.

I yield the floor.

Three Reasons Why State Expansion of Medicaid Should be Avoided at All Costs

Excerpts from: http://www.federalisminaction.com/resources/studies/study-4/#sthash.PuLhqT6q.ltVUmL2p.dpuf 

Three reasons states should avoid expanding Medicaid via Obamacare:

#1 – Public Sector Growth Crowds Out the Job-Creating, Wealth Creating Private Sector and Stymies Future Economic Growth

#2 – There is Significant Positive Correlation Between Per Household Personal Income with the Size of the Private Sector!

#3 – How Could Any State, in Good Conscience, Justify More Dependence on the Federal Government? The National Debt is $18-Trillion and Medicare is Already a Bankrupt Program!

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#1 - Public Sector Growth Crowds Out the Job-Creating, Wealth Creating Private Sector and Stymies Future Economic Growth

Incremental job growth, new income and new wealth is only accomplished through the private sector. Jobs created in the public sector are not a net gain to the economy as the salaries are paid by taxpayers. When the public sector competes with the private sector, it crowds out the job-creating sector. “Only the private sector can generate new income and wealth in an economy. Government spending, on the other, is the redistribution income first extracted by taxes. Yet, the very process of redistribution comes at a very high economic cost.”

Only the private sector creates new income. The public sector, in contrast, can only redistribute income through taxes and spending. More specifically, public sector spending consists of personal current transfer receipts (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) and government employee compensation (federal, state, and local).

This does not necessarily mean the elimination of existing household income or jobs. It does mean that future income increases and job creation will be lower than they would be in the absence of higher taxes and spending.

Growth of the public sector grows through:

• Taxes taken from the private sector or
• Printing of money which causes inflation for private sector or
• Selling of bonds which must be paid back in the future by the private sector! In the meantime, the increased interest payments must be paid by someone . . . so you raise taxes or print more money!

#2 - There is significant positive correlation between per household personal income with the private sector share of personal income. The bigger the private sector, the greater per household personal income. A 1% decrease in the size of the private sector yields a decrease in per household income of approximately $3,208.

Consider the difference between Maine and New Hampshire as Maine pursued policies to increase  public sector spending and their personal income eroded when compared to New Hampshire which shied away from such vast public sector growth policies.

#3 - The fix is in finding local solutions to fix healthcare, not on a federal one-size-fits-all approach. Instead of looking for more federal funding, states should find ways to reduce government programs instead of programs that leave the state more dependent on a federal government that is already broke.

Why the Smart Money Rejects Federal Funds for Medicaid Expansion

Big government types constantly insist that states that refuse the federal funding associated with Obamacare's Medicaid expansion are neglecting the poor residents of their states leaving them with no health insurance.

The following paragraph from a recent New Republic story demonstrates the extent of the demagoguery:

But the state officials who have blocked expansion aren’t simply depriving some people of health insurance. They are depriving the entire state of federal funds. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government picks up 100 percent of the expansion cost for the first three years, then scales back its support to 90 percent.  At that point, states will have to find the money to cover that remaining 10 percent. It’s real money. But it’s tiny compared to what they get in return. The federal money goes is a huge influx of cash, which goes first to providers and suppliers of health care. That money, in turn, generates additional economic activity. 

Notice how responsible legislators are depicted as depriving people of insurance! But it is worse than that; they are depriving the entire state of much needed money provided by the benevolent federal government. These funds will, of course, stimulate the states' economy. It's the same old, tired liberal playbook!

First of all, the individual states are under no obligation to follow unconstitutional dictates from Washington, D.C. Obamacare is unconstitutional! The federal government does not have the power to dictate to the American people how or if they buy a product. Period! The only reason it passed was due to countless lies told to the American people by Obama and the Democrats. The law will be repealed and the states that refused to get in bed with the federal government will be much better off financially. 

Secondly, the claim that federal dollars redirected to the states serves to stimulate the economy has been roundly discredited. If this actually worked, The Great Depression would have ushered in a 25-year boom like the Reagan years did and the hundreds of billions of dollars in Obama's Stimulus Bill would have pulled the economy out of The Obama Recession.

The New Republic continued:

Conservatives like to point out that the federal dollars don’t materialize out of thin air—they come from the federal treasury. That’s true. But there’s a net transfer of money here, from the very rich (who pay higher taxes under the health care law) to the poor and middle class (who get either Medicaid or tax credits for buying private insurance). That’s perfectly consistent with a program that fosters growth, particularly at a time of low demand, since it’s taking money from rich people (who might otherwise save it) and puts it right back into the economy.

The level of economic ignorance on display in this paragraph is remarkable. Rather than addressing the root cause of the problem, looking at the big pictures and considering some alternative, free-market solutions, they rely on the same shallow class warfare, Robin Hood "take from the rich, give to the poor" redistribution of wealth rhetoric that they have been spewing for 100 years.

The bottom line with liberals and progressive is their answer to every problem is a bigger centralized government and/or more government spending. They never look at the results of their previously failed policies such as the War on Poverty, bankrupt liberal programs such as Medicaid, and Medicare, and Social Security. They never acknowledge that the problems with the healthcare system prior to Obamacare were almost all due to government interference with the free-market.

They never acknowledge that discouraging "rich people" from saving and investing and replacing it with "taking money from rich people" is detrimental to the economy. Saving and investing equates to buying, building, expanding, and hiring. In other words, a growing economy! Taking that money and "giving" it to the poor provides disincentives for all of these activities. In other words, a perpetual recession, with lower wages, lower median incomes, low labor force participation rates, and high unemployment. You get the picture. 

But I guess if you write for the New Republic, you are always preaching to the choir. The strength and validity of your argument will always go unchallenged as long as you are attacking small government constitutionalists.


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120049/obamacare-medicaid-expansion-economic-cost-states-saying-no

100% Failure Rate - Part III

Back in 2009, I published my first blog proving 100% failure rate of the federal government. In it I highlighted such things as:

• Social Security
• The United States Post Office
• Amtrak
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• The War on Poverty
• The Stimulus Bill
• Cash for Clunkers

In 2010, I published 100% Failure Rate - Part II which highlighted the latest news about the insolvency of Social Security. 

Now, with almost six years of the Obama Administration under our belt, I thought it was time to update the federal governments absolutely heinous record of doing anything right. How about these?

• Veteran's Affairs
• Obamacare
• The Secret Service
• Fast and Furious
• The Ebola outbreak
• ISIS
• Benghazi
• The economy
• The national debt
• The IRS scandal
• Welfare
• The Obamacare website
• Enforcing our borders

Much, much more is outlined in my book, Pritical Thinking-The Lost Art of Critical Thinking and Common Sense in Politics and Public Policy.

Question for Eric Schmidt

Eric Schmidt, Google's Chairman, had this to say yesterday: 

“Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people—they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

Dear Mr. Schmidt,

NO ONE DENIES THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS OCCURRING. One need only be a observer of nature to know that the climate does, indeed, change! For example, we have these things called seasons - Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. 

With that cleared up, why don't you articulate to all of us liars and deniers your economy-killing solutions to stop nature from "changing"? Please explain what your nature-altering solutions will do to the standard of living of our "children and our grandchildren" and how your solutions will actually make "the world a much worse place".