Defending The American Dream Summit: Tom Coburn
Tom Coburn talked about a “culture change” in American government, and I think he’s right about that. And he started off well, talking about how entitlements like Social Security are going to leave the next generations with some $400,000 in fiscal liabilities each by the time the baby boomers are done with them.
But Coburn shifted gears quickly, going from spending problems with entitlements to spending problems with earmarks. Which was disappointing. As I’ve been saying over and over again, earmarks are a very small part of our overall spending problem. If we need a “culture change,” as Coburn puts it, it should focus cuts on entitlement spending (which nobody is talking about) instead of earmark spending (which everyone is already talking about).
In Coburn’s defense, he did point out that the way earmarks are done now is a “gateway drug” for other types of unprincipled government spending and that’s a valid point. But all this focus on earmarks is like putting a band-aid on a patient’s knee scrape while ignoring that same patient’s sucking chest wound.
Earmarks are an easy target. If we really want a challenge, we need to focus on entitlement spending.
