Perilous
Times
US. Must Control Government Spending or Face An 'Apocalyptic
Meltdown'
Published December 27, 2010
| FoxNews.com
"Apocalyptic Meltdown" from an out-of-control debt could cause 18
percent unemployment and a massive contraction in the economy that
would destroy the middle class, a leading Republican deficit hawk
said in an interview that aired Sunday.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who recently issued a report on
government waste, warned that the U.S. only has about three or
four years to get its fiscal house in order or it could find
itself facing austerity measures seen in Greece, Ireland, Spain,
Portugal and earlier in Japan.
"The history of republics is they average 200 years of life. And
they all fail in the history over fiscal matters. They rot from
within before they collapse or are attacked," Coburn told "Fox
News Sunday."
"The problem that faces our country today, the last 30 years we
have lived off the future, and the bill is coming due," he added.
The senator, who was recently elected to a second -- and he
pledges -- final term in Congress, said he's not trying to scare
anyone, but eliminating waste in the federal government's ledgers
is imperative not just to prevent default but a massive implosion
that he defined in catastrophic terms.
"I think you'll see a 15 to 18 percent unemployment rate. I think
you will see an 8 to 9 percent decline in GDP. I think you'll see
the middle class just destroyed if we don't do this. And the
people that it will harm the most will be the poorest of the poor,
because we'll print money to try to debase our currency and get
out of it and what you will see is hyperinflation," Coburn said.
"If we didn't take some pain now, we're going to experience
apocalyptic pain, and it's going to be out of our control. The
idea should be that we control it," he said.
Coburn said he can come up with $350 billion off the top of his
head in inefficiency and waste that could be eliminated without
impacting anyone in a practical sense. He noted $50 billion in
programs that are duplicative and $100 billion in Medicare and
Medicaid fraud that was not addressed in the health care law.
"We have 267 job training programs across 39 different agencies.
Why do we have 267 of them? We have 105 programs to encourage
people to go into science and technology, engineering and math.
That's 105 sets of bureaucrats. None of them have metrics on it,"
he said.
"The Pentagon can't even audit its own books. It doesn't even know
where its money is going. And we refuse to have the tough forces
go on the Pentagon so that at least they are efficient with the
money they're spending," Coburn added.
In one of his last acts in the lame-duck session that ended last
week, Coburn, an obstetrician who earned the nickname "Dr. No" for
his refusal to spend taxpayer dollars, was a critical factor in
getting a health care program for Sept. 11 responders reduced in
scope and cost. The $7.2 billion program was cut to $4.3 billion
and was paid for through additional fees and reductions in other
spending.
Coburn called the agreement a rare example of Congress being
willing to do the hard work.
"I took all the heat, but we solved the problem and spent $7.2
billion less than we would have, and there is not going to be any
difference in impact for the people we're trying to help," he
said.
Coburn acknowledged that most of the cuts he is currently
proposing are discretionary spending, which is only a fraction of
the budget. Still, he said, a couple hundred billion dollars of
the nearly $1 trillion in stimulus spending could be cut without
hurting a fragile recovery.
The senator, who was also a member of President Obama's deficit
commission that deadlocked earlier this month on recommendations
for Congress to reduce its debt, added that structural changes
need to be made to the way government works.
"The very fact that we have $1.1 trillion in tax expenditures
every year that directs capital in a way that the government says
it should be directed rather than the way it should be directed
based on markets, tells us that we have a terrible tax system,"
Coburn said.
"I don't care if you're rich or poor, liberal or conservative. If
we don't fix the problems in front of us, everybody is going to
pay a significant price," he said.