Crying in the Wilderness
“Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.” John 1:22-23
John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah by preparing the way for the Christ. He also gave us a archetypical character of the person out of step with society, but consumed by his quest. Just like Cervantes’ Quixote that came after him, John had a notion of what was to come, but he didn’t have enough of the vision to become a disciple. Instead he got wrapped up in local politics and it eventually cost him his life.
There is a similar interesting character in Congress.
Tom Coburn is a republican senator from Oklahoma. He is a medical doctor specializing in obstetrics. He served as a deacon in the Southern Baptist Church. He was elected to the House in 1995 as part of the conservative “Contract with America” Republicans. He was regarded as one of the most conservative members of Congress at the time, opposing abortion, gay rights, the v-chip, and increases in federal spending. He made a name for himself early on by trying to hold Newt Gingrich accountable for his failure to deliver on the Contract with America that got them all elected.
The picture that you are getting about this guy at this point should be fairly accurate. The reality, however, is that this is a sincere deep thinker who feels that the problem is not Democrats or Republicans. The problem is career politicians who profess to be working for the people, but in fact are just working for themselves. He summarized his deep concern regarding how our government really runs in a book he wrote in 2003 called Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders. In 2004 he was elected to the Senate and has carried on his fight there.
Here are some of his recent activities that you might find interesting.
He called the high level of federal spending our biggest challenge telling reporters, “The greatest moral issue of our time isn’t abortion, it’s robbing our next generation of opportunity.” He added, “You’re going to save a child from being aborted so they can be born into a debtor’s prison?”
Coburn blamed the GOP’s loss of their majority status in Congress on voter’s dissatisfaction with Republican spending hypocrisy saying, “It’s not a bad thing power changed last year.” He feels that voters should hold their representatives accountable. What a concept!
The conservative senator also challenged his colleagues to examine why public opinion on Congress has reached historic lows. “If we have only 11 percent support, are we a legitimate government?” he asked. He added, “The 11 percent who have confidence in us, what hole are they in?” What a refreshingly honest admission that the right to govern is ultimately one granted by the people and those who have the privilege to serve should do so only with the approval of those they are serving. If this were a parliamentary style government, the Bush administration would have already lost a vote of confidence in 2006 and we would have new leadership in place with a new foreign and domestic agenda rather than the current government still acting as if they have a mandate.
During the debate on whether or not the United States could afford to extend the children’s health care insurance bill, Senator Coburn offered up an amendment which would have blocked over $500M in special “earmarked” spending already on the books until Congress figured out how to pay for the $10M in additional insurance that was in the healthcare insurance bill. “This is going to speak volumes to the American public about our priorities, it is either going to be kids or it is going to be us.”
He took the Small Business Administration to task because they have a $15B loan program with absolutely no measurements on whether or not the loans are successful or even needed.
Senator Coburn appears to have inherited the mantle of fiscal watchdog from the late William Proxmire who created the Golden Fleece Awards for foolish federal spending. Even though I don’t share many of the conservative views of Senator Coburn, I very much admire his willingness to stand on principle and fight the good fight for responsible government. Let’s just hope that this wilderness voice doesn’t also lose his head.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:21 am
here, here.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:21 am
bravo!!!
November 8th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Keith,
Good to hear from you.
What got my attention is this solid pro-life conservative saying that fiscal responsibility is more important.
Now that’s some common ground that can bring together even pro-life and pro-choice backers.
For him also to say that Congress has to have the support of the people to effectively govern is also refreshing.
What we need now is for people to support candidates who pledge campaign reform. Guys like Tom Coburn are few and far between because of the corrupting influence of big money. Let’s get serious about leveling the playing field for all candidates with public funding.
Then maybe we’ll get a congress willing to focus on doing the people’s business rather than one devoted to creating legislation to benefit their special interest backers.
Jeff
November 8th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
we have reach agreement once again!
keep it up and we’ll be running on the same ticket.
the idea of public funding is enticing. big money shouldn’t be the trump card as it is today. might fall on a free speach issue however. also will gov’t give everyone the same funds? who decides who gets money and who doesn’t. will we have a million people running for office? how much more do they get??? etc.
i am watching with interest govoner huckelby’s bid. i agree with him more then any candidate in my adult years, including reagan. the govoner has no money but remains in the race. i can’t remember this happening on either side. this doesn’t appear to be like dennis k on the dem side who shows up every four years with no support in dollars or votes. people are getting behind the govoner and he remains a candidate, with no money.
so jeff, what do we do with the ever growing entitlement issues including s.s?
November 8th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Keith,
If you have some time, take a look at the Iowa model for funding elections. I think that it something that we could adopt country-wide. It has survived legal challenge.
SS has to change. The financial model just doesn’t work. At the same time, we are already discovering that the bigger part of the problem is how our healthcare system is structured. Employers can’t bear the burden of paying for the healthcare of their current employees, much less those who are retired.
Though some want to make this a class issue, it is really an issue of economic competitiveness. Whether we like it or not, our government has to relieve our industries from the burden of healthcare in the same ways as other governments that we compete with do. Otherwise, our industries will always be at a basic cost disadvantage.
I don’t care what name you put on it. Until we have leaders who are willing to take this on, we will continue to have some version of this problem (SS, uninsured children, drug benefits, loss of manufacturing, etc.).
Jeff
November 8th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
i can’t get there with gov’t sponsered health care. i see no good examples of it. the problem lies with the legal system which make medical costs so high. (let me also saythere is no simple one answer solution) as for the uninsured, it would certianly help the debate if we were all honest with the numbers. the dem as saying 50 million uninsured. that’s one in six of us….i can’t get my arms around that. i’ve heard numbers as low as 8 million. this is when you take out everyone who could get it but doesn’t want it. i heard this in a debate somewhere and after it was said no one opposed this statement. i don’t know what the real number is but would you agree 1 in 6 seams realy high?
our care is the best i think and if it weren’t so people wouldn’t come here to get it. it maybe health care for all in other countries but proceedures are sometimes hard to get. in canada customers of mine like it but acknowledge if they torn a knee playing basketball on a weekend it could be months before they had surgery availible to them. we simple wouldn’t stand for that here in the u.s.a.and rightly so….
i’ll still get to my war answer for you and how i square tht up with my faith.
November 8th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Keith,
I could argue with you on all of those points, but it really doesn’t make any difference. We don’t have a choice.
We are the only industrialized country in the world with an employer-paid health and retirement system and it is (no pun intended) killing us.
Healthcare is now the single largest sector of our economy (17%) and it is a net cost born mainly by businesses and employees through lower profits and lower take home pay. Japanese, Chinese, Indian, European, and yes even Canadian companies are quickly gaining significant cost advantages over US companies because of government subsidized care.
We used to think that our productivity could make up the difference, but ask any autoworker about what legacy healthcare and retirement costs have done to their profession.
The challenge in this country is that those that profit from this system are not going to support any move to change it. So you will continue to see people pushing the sorts of arguments that you listed.
Just like Tom Coburn, though, I’m telling you to do the research. You will come to the same conclusion. If we want to remain globally competitive, we have to change our healthcare system.
Jeff
November 9th, 2007 at 11:46 am
i agree it needs to change, single payer, and that single payer being the gov’t, im not sue of.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Keith,
Hey look at that. We agree again!
You are right. Single payor is the key. The largest single payer right now is the government, but if we were able to figure out some other single payer system run by a private or semi-private entity (visions of Ma Bell), I agree that would go a long way toward solving the problem.
Jeff