Free Republic

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has released a breakdown of how much the federal government forgoes in tax revenue due to various credits and deductions that benefit everything from NASCAR owners to gamblers. It's a fairly comprehensive analysis that should get bipartisan support, but one of the categories that Sen. Coburn targets to raise taxes from may be surprising: "the rich." Coburn highlights $100 billion in tax revenue that could be raised over the next ten years by ending some of these deductions only on millionaire households. Over the 2006-2009 time period, Coburn notes, millionaires deducted over $20 billion in gambling...

Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK, has long been a voice of reason in the United States Senate. He was the same voice of reason in the House of Representatives, causing Speaker Newt Gingrich major headaches by not going along to get along. He has long been advocating a balanced approach to reducing the national debt and the deficit and it is worth mentioning that Coburn's approach is much more balanced than the proposals President Obama and the liberal Democrats have put forth. Coburn is called Dr. No in the Senate for a reason. The number of bills he has blocked because...

For the first time in more than three weeks, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met face-to-face today at the White House to talk about avoiding the fiscal cliff. … The White House afternoon talks, conducted without cameras or any announcement until they were over, came as some Republicans were showing more flexibility about approving higher tax rates for the wealthy, one of the president’s demands to keep the country from the so-called fiscal cliff—a mixture of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that many economists say would send the country back into recession. “Let’s face it. He does...

Senator says nuts to SDSU 'RoboSquirrel' study - The 'Robosquirrel' developed by San Diego State and UC Davis can move its tail to mimic the behavior of a real animal. UC Davis A San Diego State University research project involving robotic squirrels has been placed on Sen. Tom Coburn's annual list of wasteful government spending, a move the campus says is unfair and misleading. Coburn, R-Okla., issued the list last week, criticizing everything from the use of food stamps to purchase fast food to a subsidy for a struggling ferry business in Alaska. The list also is critical of the...

Coburn: Sequestration doesn’t have to hurt if we just cut the waste, duplication and ridiculous out of the Pentagon. CBS News ran this report tonight and I was literally stunned at some of the “ridiculous” Coburn has found in wasteful spending in the Pentagon: Sequestration could be Pentagon pork killer

Video captures tea party activist confronting Coburn at public event Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has promised constituents he would contact Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona to be briefed on details of the sheriff’s law enforcement investigation into Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility. In a video posted on YouTube.com, tea-party activist Miki Booth is seen at a public appearance confronting the senator about a letter she wrote to him. To date, however, Arpaio has received no contact from Coburn or his office. In a second press conference held in Phoenix July 17, Mike Zullo, lead investigator in Arpaio’s Cold Case...

This video explains EVERYTHING wrong with media and Liberalism today. Jonathan Capehart, a writer for the Washington Post, appears on MSNBC, and quotes the TEAParty's goal to fix Washington, D.C., and especially the "abandonment of the Constitution." Then the fool asks Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) how and when that "abandonment" has happened. Coburn explains and Capehart cuts in and says he isn't familiar with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Video here.Photo: Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post Writer - Symbol of all that is wrong with Liberalism JONATHAN CAPEHART: Sen. Coburn, it’s Jonathan Capehart. I want to bring you back...

What does it take to win a Pulitzer Prize or write editorials for the Washington Post? Hard to say [though being a liberal certainly helps], but familiarity with the basic constitutional principles upon which our country was founded is apparently not required. On today's Morning Joe, Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart apologized to Senator Tom Coburn for being unfamiliar with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Enumerated Powers clause. As you'll see from the clip, Capehart's befuddlement regarding the clause seemed to extend beyond the specific article number to the very principle that it...

Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is "in a pickle" arguing against the president's health care bill because he passed a similar version in Massachusetts. "He prescribed this. This was his bill," Schumer said on "Face the Nation." He noted Republicans "have ads saying it's a tax increase. Are they going to say, 'Mitt Romney had the biggest tax increase in Massachusetts?'" "Mitt Romney is in a total pickle here," Schumer said, arguing that the Republican Party is in a tough position: As polls suggest the economy is the top priority of voters, he...

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a staunch fiscal conservative and Tea Party favorite, said he is certain that the United States will face another credit downgrade. "S&P's downgrade on us was right, matter of fact we're going to get another downgrade. I can tell you right now, you can have a great legal case for suing the rating agencies for not downgrading us again because we have not demonstrated the political will to solve the problems," said Coburn on CBS's midweek show "Face to Face," posted online Wednesday. The Oklahoma senator told CBS that he has "no doubt" that there will...

Yesterday on Laura IngrahamÂ’s radio show, she asked Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell about a recent Roll Call article that framed me as one of the loud leaders of conservatives opposed to Mitch McConnell. The Senator from Kentucky responded that he had never heard of me and I did not have an audience. That sounds a bit like the child, when asked if he ate the cookie, replying that he had not and besides it did not taste good. If heÂ’d never heard of me, how can he comment on my audience? If he states plainly I have no audience,...

Elections are about choices. This November, the most important choice facing the American people will be whether we will demand a solution and avert a debt crisis or whether we will continue to accept the status quo and hope for the best. I'm confident the vast majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle want a solution. The next choice, then, is deciding who is best qualified to enact a solution. In life, and especially politics, our choices are seldom perfect and often difficult. But it is critically important to make a choice and support the person who is...

Keep going, doc. I think you’re on to something: U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011″ that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government. “Video games, robot dragons, Christmas trees, and magic museums. This is not a Christmas wish list, these are just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars. Over the past 12 months, politicians argued, debated and lamented about...

Silver doesn’t quite go so far as to say that it makes a brokered convention or a late-breaking establishment candidate likely, but I’m willing to go that far. There’s just no way the Republican establishment lets Gingrich become their nominee. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out today, you’re already seeing the anti-Gingrich mobilization among conservative thought leaders: Here’s George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tom Coburn and Ann Coulter, just for starters. There’s this Politico story about all the Washington Republicans who hate Gingrich. Now, I think it’s more likely that this mobilization leads to a Romney win then...

If you told me that somebody had published a comprehensive report on wasteful government policies which dole out billions of dollars to the wealthiest individuals in the country, one of the last people I’d expect to find as the author would be Senator Tom Coburn.(R-OK) But that’s precisely what unfolded when I found that the senator had borrowed a tag line from 1970s television programming and released, “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous.” U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new report “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous” illustrating how, under the current tax code, the federal government...

Navy Times is reporting that Senator Tom Coburn (R) has a plan to cut DOD by spending by $43 billion. His plan will force retirees off TRICARE Prime (HMO) and into TRICARE Standard (PPO). Then his plan is to raise the fees for standard so high (total out of pocket cost $7,500 annually) "working age" retirees (under 65) will opt out for mythical cheaper medical insurance from some as of yet unidentified employer. While I admit TRICARE Prime is cheap none of Coburn's figures add in Dental, separate plans under TRICARE. As a retiree my wife and I pay out...

Sen. Tom Coburn's deficit-reduction plan Details of Sen. Tom Coburn's $9 trillion plan to balance the budget NewsOK Related Articles Sen. Tom Coburn's plan: Would save about $9 trillion over 10 years, including $3 trillion from entitlements, $3 trillion from government departments and agencies, $1 trillion from defense, $1 trillion from ending or modifying tax breaks and deductions, and $1 trillion in interest on the debt. Would reduce the size of government by 25 percent over 10 years. Would balance the budget within 10 years. Read more: http://newsok.com/details-of-sen.-tom-coburns-9-trillion-plan-to-balance-the-budget/article/3586676#ixzz1SUBIXa8X

Late last week, it looked like Tom Coburn might rejoin the Gang of Six in the Senate, which restarted their efforts to find a compromise on the budget as the debt-ceiling limit debate rages. Today, however, Coburn will become a Gang of One by releasing his own plan to reduce the deficit by twice the amount of the Paul Ryan plan. Unlike Ryan, Coburn plans on increasing federal revenues, but through reform of the tax code: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Sunday the federal government can save $1 trillion though tax reform, a proposal that will put him at odds...

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said Sunday that fellow GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell's proposal to raise the debt limit was "a great political plan" but that it didn't solve the nation's debt crisis - and so he was not likely to vote for it. In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Coburn claimed he no longer cared about the politics of the debate, and said that "I am only going to support something that actually solves the problem." "I haven't firmly decided, but I am unlikely to support it at this time," Coburn said, of McConnell's plan, which would allow...

Last month, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) voted against the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), which includes significant reforms to Medicare. After doing so, the former Democrat says, he could not in good conscience do nothing, as that would signal an endorsement of the status quo, which when it comes to Medicare, as well as the national debt, is simply unsustainable. Indeed, the program’s own trustees admit as much. So Lieberman took to the pages of the Washington Post to offer his own plan to preserve Medicare for future generations. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.)...