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‘Most politicians are chicken’
Senator Coburn urges citizen involvement in government
By Helen Barrett
Alva Review-Courier
August 12, 2007
Senator Tom Coburn has a simple solution for America’s problems.
Get involved.
Hold elected officials accountable for their actions.
“Most politicians are chickens,” Dr. Coburn said at the Alva Town Meeting Friday afternoon. “If you start pressuring them, they’re going to listen to you.”
Dr. Coburn cited the effectiveness of the nation’s reaction to the proposed immigration bill.
“There were so many calls the phone lines at the Capitol failed,” Dr. Coburn said. “People said `you’re wrong, we don’t want this.’ Because of that pressure, they changed.”
The American people applied common sense to that issue, something Dr. Coburn described as “very uncommon in Washington.”
“There’s all sorts of ways to straighten out wayward children,” the senator said. “That’s what most senators and congressmen are.”
IMMIGRATION
Dr. Coburn said the immigration problem would be solved if the current laws were enforced. “We’ve got to have an administration that wants to enforce that border,” he said. “We don’t have that right now.”
Dr. Coburn said a worker verification system is needed. A Social Security card that cannot be duplicated would drastically reduce the problem. That could be accomplished by use of a fingerprint or retinal scan, he said.
Such a system has been proposed but not passed.
“We have opposition from the hard left and opposition from the hard right,” he said.
He insists the problem wouldn’t exist if the government controlled the border.
“A good portion of the people coming across that border are not Hispanic, they are Middle Easterners,” he said.
Dr. Coburn said the problem is decreasing annually. Five times as many illegal immigrants have been deported this year as compared to last year, he said.
“We fly five 727s a day out of here with illegal immigrants,” the senator said. “That’s happening. It’s not in the press.”
Dr. Coburn said the national media has a significant liberal bias.
“I have every confidence that the people on the wrong side of that problem are going to have difficulty getting reelected,” Coburn said.
IRAQ
A citizen asked about the true situation in Iraq and did he believe we were making progress.
“Absolutely yes!” Coburn stated.
Six Oklahoma soldiers e-mail the senator regularly in addition to the official military briefing he receives weekly.
“One is a close friend of my son,” Coburn said. “There’s a marked change.”
Coburn said the insurgents’ goal is to kill as many Americans as possible between now and September to try to prove the surge isn’t working.
“The fact is that we’ve cleared four provinces totally now,” Sen. Coburn said. “Violence in those areas is almost zero.
“Detroit and Newark have more violence,” he said. Coalition troops have killed 2900 Al Qaeda and jailed another 20,000 – none of which are Iraqis, he said. “We’re starting to see a change in what Iraqi people are giving us in human intelligence,” he said. “They know they now have a strategy that is going to win,” he continued. “Is it going to be easy? Is it going to be fast? Absolutely not.”
Coburn said even when the country is stable enough for American troops to withdraw, the government there will probably not be an American-style democracy.
“If we lose in Iraq what did we lose, who did we lose to?” he asked. “It won’t be the Iraqis. It will be the same people we pay through our gas to kill us.”
Coburn said if America troops were to withdraw now, 2.5 million Iraqis would die, another 2 million would be displaced. He said America has a moral obligation to not let that happen.
SOCIAL SECURITY-HEALTHCARE
Dr. Coburn explained his vote against the SCHIP bill which increased funding for state insurance programs.
“It increased the program by $7 billion over the next 10 years, but only paid for the first 5 years,” he said.
The bill would actually pull children off private insurance to go on the government program. The government insurance would cost $3700 per child while private insurance costs $1500.
“Why should we spend $2,000 more dollars to get less health care,” he said.
“The way the government controls healthcare costs is to ration services,” Coburn said. “We control the cost of Medicare by decreasing what we’ll reimburse.”
Dr. Coburn said if you move to Oklahoma City or Tulsa, you’ll have difficulty finding a doctor who will accept you as a patient if you’re on Medicare.
“One of the number one things in the presidential debate is health care,” he said.
Sen. Coburn flatly stated that Congress was not going to fix Social Security.
“They’re afraid of what the AARP is going to say if they fix it,” he said. “Everybody has an interest group in Washington.”
Coburn said Social Security could be easily fixed by giving people the option to be in Social Security or Social Security-plus.
“One is a private vehicle with a guarantee underneath it,” he said. “If we did that, in 30 years Social Security would be totally endowed forever. But nobody wants to take on the AARP.”
To balance the current Social Security system would require taking 36% of Americans’ wages off the top.
“That would be a 24.3% rise off the top if we just fix it without reforming it,” he said.
SOLUTIONS
“None of our big problems are unsolvable,” Coburn said. “It takes leadership, courage and putting yourself second.”
Many of the problems continue because the officeholders are career politicians, he said.
“Many of them don’t have a career except for 30-40 years of being in elected office,” Coburn said. “All they know is the inside of the political process.”
FUTURE ASPIRATIONS
Dr. Coburn was asked if he would consider running for President in the future.
“No I wouldn’t,” he replied quickly. “I was called to do this job. I know what I’m supposed to do, and I know that’s NOT something I’m supposed to do. I wouldn’t even attempt it.”
Sen. Coburn said anyone who wants to run for President “is nuts.”
“That’s a nice compliment, but I’m not about to consider that,” he said. “I want to stay married and I know that wouldn’t happen if I ran for President.”
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