Tom Coburn: ‘We’re Over the Cliff Already’

Someone with a brain had finally spelled it out in big letters for all of the idiots in this country. The elephant in the room is entitlements. Until you control that you have done nothing.

First sign of common sense I have heard all year! It’s time to get to work and really work on the budget!

You can’t fall off a cliff if you never left the ground.

Wby don’t we cut the tax rates to 0%. Then complain that our deficit problem is caused by spending too much on entitlements.

Stupidly, the majority of Americans believe George W. Bush is responsible almost singularly for this country’s economiic problems. The majority forgets(or is ignorant of) the fact that unemployment was at 4.7% in 2006 and that the Bush Tax Cuts were not just for the wealthy but for the middle class and poor as well. The majority forgets(or is ignorant of) the fact that we had a Democratic Congress the last two years of the Bush Administration and that the Democratic Party pushed banks to give out bad loans repeatedly. The majority forgets(or is ignorant of) the fact that TARP(which is credited by Obama with rescuing the US from ‘the “brink”) was a Bush program and that the GM bailout(which Obama gets sole credit for) began under Bush. The majority forgets(or is ignorant of) the fact that the deficits under Bush were tiny compared to Obama’s. The truth is therefore, that, unfortunately, to a majority of Americans, the facts don’t matter. Until the majority of Americans stop being stupid and educate themselves as to the above facts, Obama and the media will succeed in fooling them again and again.

Bush – fool me once , uh …..yeah it was bush, it happened during his 8 year run on sentence that we had to witness.

I’m just a little surprised that the democrats in the crowd haven’t responded to my proposal to raise whatever taxes are necessary to end the deficit. Is there some problem with this? Please let me know what your objections are. Don’t we all agree that the deficit which leads to greater debt is bad?

apostleJohn | December 6, 2012, 4:04 pm —- Take any 4 years of Bush even 2001 (9/11) and 2008 (recession) and compare them to Obama’s. Compare all the numbers from their 1st day in office. Obama promised many things and delivered almost none.

If we had 100% taxes paid by everyone, do you really think the government would just stop spending MORE money?

@ commonsense party – who was at the helm the last days of bush years? what was happening? do you ebven care to acknowledge the depth of partisan hate that one side hands off to another a ticking time bomb & then waits for it to go off then blame the recipient of the time bomb…that’s how the gop plays….cheats I mean, cheaters never prosper…THEY LOSE ELECTIONS knumnuts.

everyone pay your taxes…problem solved….what’s wrong now gop? it’s always something….the party of no….whines again.

It solves no problem! Don’t be dumb.

billy bob , at least i don’t do inbreeding like yourself

Posted by: apostleJohn
Are you sure about that??? Ok I get it, you really are not this stupid, this is just an act you put on???

Will the drug addict be happy with less drugs or more?

@apostleJohn — Everyone does pay their taxes, even the rich. What Dems are whining about is they feel they don’t pay enough. I say overhaul or tax code, close loopholes, limit deductions, this includes people who have more kids than they can afford) then everyone will pay their fair share. Don’t confuse income tax and the tax people like Romney and Buffett pay on capital gains.

apostleJohn | December 6, 2012, 4:17 pm — So TARP helped nobody? The rise of the GDP started in the 1st quarter of 2009.

wars are pretty expensive, who paid ? when ? how ? where?

@ catman – I concur , we’re never gonna get anywhere with a boehner in the house! LOL!

Yeah, what Washington needs is a good Zombie Apocolypse. But only if congress is in session.

the best thing obama could do is use his executive power and legalize and regulate marijauna for a whole host of reasons. number one prohibition never works, it will save billions in law enforcement ( police and prison unions would fight that), we could tax it and pay for obama care, hostess twinkees would be profitable and last we could get stoned and foget about the fiscal cliff because we wouldnt care.

@David — Isn’t Congress full of zombies? Each being controlled and doing the will of their respective party?

Cut spending including on all you right wing senior loons on SS and Medicare. No more free scooters. You want a scooter, buy itself.

Let’s cut some of that military spending. Wars are pretty expensive.

lizzie – just saying – lots of corruption & rich getting richer during bush years, obama comes in …what does he do? FIXES THINGS! you seem to forget to listen to other things besides faux news where you evidently get your ‘facts’ & dash over here thinking your doing some kind of holy work. well you’re not, your just one of the gops sheep & I doubt u even are the upper 2% which really makes you a sheep.

Debbie | December 6, 2012, 4:43 pm ——- Eliminate 75% of bases overseas and bring those folks home to guard our borders and spend their money here. Consolidate commands and reduce the upper 2 tiers by 10% by offering early retirements. Eliminate all training deployments and conduct the training at the home bases. Utilize telecon meetings verses travel. There are many ways to cut the miltary and still keep our current levels of capabilities.

apostleJohn | December 6, 2012, 4:47 pm —- It’s not saved yet. Have you seen GM stock? We the people are on the hook for Billions and need the stock to triple to break even. If that is your idea of saved, then it’s different than most.

@ commonsense – i have confidence they will be ok, & we are better off this way then not doing anything. & cash for clunkers was good too, although no one admits it. I enjoy cleaner air.

If people want more entitlements, free child care, trips to Europe or whatever their little pea pickin heart desires they can have—-except someone has to pay for it. If they think the rick have the income then put the entire tax burden on them. If they don’t then I guess we all will have to pay for it. Let’s see how committed to big government you are. It doesn’t come cheap. I have made a fair offer and all should be agreeable.

Bottom line. STOP SPENDING, OBAMA!!!! DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR SICK, SICK ADDICTION!!! Obama shells out food stamps to millions, welfare to millions, healthcare to millions, and many other handouts to millions. This includes the many, many millions wo are milking and defrauding the system and sucking up the resources like leeches at taxpayer expense. WHEN is it going to stop, Obama??? Taxing the very rich will have adverse effects on the economy, and the amunt of money will keep the government running for just a few days, that’s all. And higher taxes for others will mean that millions of people will have less money, so consequently they will tighten up and not spend as much, and obviously businesses will suffer, and more jobs will be lost. Back in 2011, Obama, you stated that well over a trillion dollars could be raised WITHOUT raising taxes on anyone. Now in a very odd turn of events, you are saying something entirely different. With your track record of lying, Obama, it is impossible to trust anything that you say.

Entitlements did not put us here – two wars with no bid contracts, bailing out the criminal Wall streeet bankers, and 12 years of tax cuts during that time is why we are here. Leave entitlement spendiing off the table as it is NOT the CAUSE.

try not going to war to save money…it’s a win / win

war & greed & lies….bush’s america
marijuana smokers smoke legally in Washington! …. obama’s america

I’ll take Obama’s America over war & greed any day. war & greed are works of the devil. pot is not.

Too late! They have already spent that money and have placed IOU’s in the place of cash.

I fell out of a tree and landed on my head when I was young so I do have an excuse for being an idiot.

Posted by: apostleJohn | December 6, 2012, 4:51 pm 4:51 pm
Hey, that’s what happened to me too!

Posted by: BILLY BOB
You are not as big of an idiot as i am Billy, I promise you that.

Posted by: apostleJohn | December 6, 2012, 4:58 pm 4:58 pm

I never left, fooled you didn’t I. Naw, I’m a way bigger idiot than you. My momma told me so. She never lies. She tells me it’s not my fault though. I picked it up from my father, she can’t remember if it was Raymond or Bobby, but they were both massive idiots.

Posted by: BILLY BOB | December 6, 2012, 5:05 pm 5:05 pm

I have to admit, you are pretty sharp Billy. I too got my idiot genes from my father, Uncle John.

We got here because of two wars, a prescription drug benefit, a bailout of Wall Street’s greedy collapse and multiple tax cuts. Remember Cheney after the 2002 election: “We won the election, we deserve another tax cut.” Everyone has to sacrifice to put the American budget on sound footing. We are here because Bush and Cheney and their Greedy Old Party plundered our national treasury through a variety of scams. But we all have to do our part. It’s absolutely outrageous that the super rich and mega corporations who drove the car off the cliff insist on taking a limo away from the accident scene. They pour a fortune into buying candidates but they can’t ante up for the good of the country!! It should make anyone who cares about this country absolutely sick. We’ve got to stick a fork once-and-for-all in the Bush/Cheney era of runaway greed and selfishness!

the people complain about the politicians, but as I see on this page, the people are just as bad if not worse than the politicians. we are morphing into the future….everything is changing, while the political parties blame it on each other, the change (climate & all is changing) we will react, we will fight, & when catastrophe hits…& it will, we will band together for a day or 2…people in America need to change…without complaint

No need to save SS Disability fund as it have been allowed to be raided by false claimants who are not really disabled !

The Republicans will never get it! The Gov creates money not as the whiners would have you believe. The U.S.’s infrastruchter is desperately in need of repair THAT’S the gov. job not the states. The states are notoriusly wasteful and they can’t be trusted to spend wisely it usuallt goes to Graft and Corrupt Officals.

With my son now serving in Afghanistan, away from his family for Christmas, and his promotion and pay raise put on hold for 9 months because of past cuts to defense….I’m all for leaving Afghanistan to the Afghans. Now. Not when Obama told the Taliban we were moving out. Casualties in Afghanistan have tripled since Obama was elected. Obama ordered 30,000 more troops deployed there to bolster the NATO forces that were losing the fight we had already won against the Taliban. Obama escalated our involvement in Afghanistan. Obama cut defense spending. Makes as much sense as everything else he does.

Casualties in Afghanistan have tripled since Obama was elected.

Posted by: Newsjunkie | December 6, 2012, 6:07 pm 6:07 pm

George Bush diverted his attention from Afghanistan and sent way over 100,000 troops to Iraq. U.S. deaths in Afghanistan went up every year under Bush. This trend continued until Obama’s policy came into effect in 2010. American deaths have gone down each year since then.

dan…murdres in chicago have risen last year to an amount higher than the war in afghanisatn….why are we not invading chicago?

See, it wasn’t so bad…..

dan…how did we know they were imaginary in iraq before we invaded? we didnt nor do we know now….so lets not make the same mistake again but never forget that war is good business and great for the economy in the short run. unemployment suspiciously soared upward over the past 4 weeks and politicians will do anything to get re elected. the drumbeat has started…for that matter how does any journalist know? yet cnn is all over the story.

time to let the middle east take care of itself.

billy bob sounds like we are going after imaginary wmd s in syria as we speak

Posted by: catman | December 6, 2012, 6:39 pm 6:39 pm

So you really don’t have clue whether Syria’s WMD are ‘imaginary’ or not, you’re just blathering. Fair enough.

just let Bush tax cut expire for everyone, which is only way now to raise enough revenue. people forget that taxing more on the ‘rich’ would only produce enough revenue to run government for a few days, and unless tax is raised for everyone especially middle class, there will be not enough money to reduce even half of deficit.

so, just let’s all go over the cliff, which is the best option now to at least cut some spending and raise some significant amount of revenue.

Ogregunner – Well said. Unfortunately, far too few people realize that govt needs to STOP SPENDING!!!

I long for the days when we had a President who was a real leader, but one the Democrats have turned their back on in their endless pursuit of giving people “goodies” from the Government and having other people pay for them.

The leader I have in mind is a President that said in his inaugural address:

Ask NOT what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

–President John F. Kennedy

Dan, I’m not saying there won’t be pain. But for the overall economy its better to not run deficits. Immediately confidence would rise as we got our financial house in order and with that the economy would improve. Jobs would increase and fewer people would have to depend on the government for their sustenance. Then government could shrink even more, allowing people to keep more of the money they’ve earned.
See the problem is not that we’re paying too little in taxes. The problem is the government is spending too much money. Money it doesn’t have. Politicians have been promising too much to too many for votes, and its gotten to the point that we can’t afford it. The Federal government has doubled in size since 2001. Why? Do we really need a TSA that’s more interested in your daughter’s boobs, than in profiling Al Qeada members? Do we really need FEMA, when people are still without power and heat nearly a month after Sandy? What did we do before them? Do we really need departments of energy and education when we’re running trillion dollar deficits? And do we need them in light of the fact that if we don’t get rid of them Grammy’s not getting her social security check? You know the check she keeps getting even though the taxes she put in for it she got back twenty years ago? This is going to be hard. 60 years of politicians lying is going to be tough to overcome. But we have to stop spending before we allow the government to take even more of our money. Why would we let them, given the bang-up job they’ve done so far?

The leader I have in mind is a President that said in his inaugural address:

Ask NOT what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

–President John F. Kennedy

Posted by: Altair-IV | December 6, 2012, 7:15 pm 7:15 pm

In Kennedy’s time the super wealthy didn’t whine and complain like they do now – they paid taxes FAR above the current rates and were still happy to live and contribute to the best country in the world.

I just wonder why the republicans didn’t care about any of this stuff when bush was in office spending trillions on Wars that turned out to be false ?

Well, in my lifetime, I won’t be making over $50,000, so I’m good.

Posted by: Dan | December 6, 2012, 9:23 pm 9:23 pm
In Kennedy’s time there were waaaay more loopholes. So the rich didn’t have to whine. Besides Kennedy LOWERED tax rates, and had an economic boom.

Let’s not forget the government takes 2 TRILLION dollars from us in taxes. Stop and think about that. 2 TRILLION dollars. Every Year. You can do a lot with that money. But our government spends 3.5 Trillion. I mean really? 2 Trillion isn’t enough? Gimme a break.

The rich need to give up more; those living off the government need to take some responsibility. And let’s bring the troops home. Problem solved.

In your nostalgia you forgot one other aspect of the high tax era on the rich. Government spending was a lot less as a percentage of GDP. If you want to go back to that era, then fine with me. Just realize that we are talking about a lot smaller government and NO Medicare and Medicaid.

Democrats are such a needy bunch.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., “But the real elephant in the room is entitlements.” Would someone like to explain to me how the money I have put into both Social Security and Medicare are now “entitlements”? Both of the programs were designed by Congress and my payroll deductions are mandated by the same Congress. So what exactly am I entitled to? Getting my money back? I have an idea, just refund the money I have put n over the last 50 years of working, stop taking money out of my paycheck, and let me invest the money my way. I may not make as much but at least Congress won’t have a “slush fund” anymore at my expense!

When I listened to Coburn on Social Security and Medicare, he is lying. Both can be fixed by increasing the Top from $110,000 just like we have done for the last 50 years I contributed. When it comes to Medicaid, Coburn needs to fix the Price Fixing of Medical Monopoly that has been locked in with a Network of Computers that tick up prices nationwide. There is no Competition, Medical Services is a Monopoly for 7% Profit and we need to wake up and make our Congress address the Medical Services Monopoly.
Coburn and his Republican Rich 2% want to kill Medicare and Social Security, The Corporatists the Republicans stole my Defined Benefit Pension just like the 44 million households who were tossed over to the Pension Guarantee Corp with schemes of Bain Capital, Merger and Aquisitions and Leveraged Buyouts that raided pension funds.
The Republicans who represent the 2% just want no Safety Net for the 98% that Medicare and Social Security provides. They want to eradiate the program so they will not be pressured to be taxes. They are fighting tooth and nail to stop a 4% tax rate increase of the 2% (Report $300,000 in taxable income, the tax raise would be $2000 which is “:Chump Change”. If Coburn wants to reduce taxes, how about cutting back on the $800 Billion (before 9/11 $400 Billion) poured into the Military Industrial Complex. That is where we need to reduce spending, we are not at war with China ($143 Bilion) or Russia ($100 Billion) and there is a lot of reduction that is available.
So raise the taxes 4% on the Rich. Don’t worry, Corporate Executives of this country are paid 90% in stock, taxed at 15% Capital gains rates. We need to raise those taxes to the Top Marginal Tax rates.
How about invoking a “Stock Trade” tax, on the Computer Hyper trading that is skimming $Billions every second from our 401K’s and Retirement funds?
How the Republicans who represent 2% of this country, had 45% vote for them is beyond me. I guess the Corporate Republican Media of Fox and Limbaugh have been effective but thank goodness for the Internet.
Coburn is a shill for the 2% just like all his Republican Party that have been Highjacked by the likes of the Billionaire Koch Brothers who “Want it All”.