Been seeing a lot of Sen. Tom Coburn (R- Oklahoma) lately and boy do I like him. I Watched him in on C-Span 2 speaking in the U.S. Senate for about 30 minutes and found it so riveting I couldn't change back to the Red Foxx Show.
He speaks my language.
There's no way for me to summarize it here (I hope it will end up on youtube soon) but his point was 1) the slow, quiet growth of bureaucracy is destroying freedom 2) bailouts without prudent follow ups amount to stealing from the people and 3) fraud, corruption and inefficient behavior is rampant at the government level. Some of the figures he cited from public records include:
- Medicare fraud: $80billion
- Social security disability fraud: 2.5 billion
- Spoke about GAO contract frauds.
- UN peacekeeping fraud. $2 billion and the lack of transparency with the UN.
- Total fraud he cited: $184 billion - on a conservative estimate.
He wonders if Federal programs are in the red why in the world take on a massive project like health care without first cleaning up what's already there?
I've always looked at life that way. Before embarking on a new project, make sure you have your shit together.
There it was. An American politician standing up and speaking out. Calling out the spending madness.
I wish Canada had the guts to tracks its own corruption and fraud. There's no doubt in my mind our government mismanagement would be a cause for shame.
There's not enough transparency here. It makes it hard for citizens to be vigilant; a necessity if our democracies are to be functional, and fiscally responsible.
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