Politics

Retiring Senator Tom Coburn: Congress Lied To America About Spending

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
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Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said Thursday that Congress lied to the American people about the amount of spending placed in the recent continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last week.

Coburn said that lawmakers from both parties, including Republican House Speaker John Boehner, lied about the amount of spending in the resolution because it far exceeds the amount promised in the two-year federal budget bill passed at the end of 2013.

Coburn, who is retiring when his term is up after the 2016 elections, cut loose in an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.

“The reason Americans have such poor view of Washington is because we’re dishonest with the American public in what we do,” Coburn told Ingraham. “In the continuing resolution […] we’re $47 billion above what we said we would be [in the Ryan-Murray bill].”

“So we’ve been lied to about how this will all be funded?” Ingraham asked.

“Absolutely. The whole [continuing resolution] was a lie, in terms of the numbers associated with it,” Coburn replied. “Remember that started in House, that bill came from the House. That wasn’t Senators manipulating that; that was a Republican House manipulating it.”

“So why does John Boehner perpetuate the lie along with Democrats?” Ingraham followed up.

“I don’t know. The fact is career politicians do not want to make hard choices,” Coburn said. “And we’ll never get the public support to make the tough decisions we need unless we’re honest with them about the severity of the problems that we face. And it’s so easy to spend 46 billion dollars more than what you said you were going to spend because the people that are going to suffer from us over spending are not here today– they are the generation M and younger, who are going to pay off this 46 billion that we lied about in this bill.”

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Patrick Howley