In
The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan To Stop Washington From Bankrupting America, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) explains how Washington's career politicians, staffers, and lobbyists have set the nation up for fiscal failure. Pulling few punches, Coburn targets sacred cows of each party and explains that rather than being in gridlock (as the media claims is the case), Congress has spent the last several decades (and especially the last 15 years) working to expand influence and re-election capabilities regardless of party.
Opening with a story about how America's rising debt could cause first a financial, and then a military crisis by 2020, Coburn reminds readers that this country is only as powerful as its finances will allow it to be. In this fictional-but-likely future, foreign investors decide in 2014 that America is no longer a viable financial investment. Over a span of days, this new consensus works its way into the value of the dollar, sinking it by 50% and increasing inflation. Riots become widespread, the National Guard is deployed, and the G-20 meets to tell the U.S. that tax rates will double, retirement ages will leap precipitously, and means-testing will be the order of the day on benefits. Finally, in 2019 -- two years after employment finally drops from 24% -- China invades Taiwan and informs the U.S. that if we stop the invasion, the U.S. will lose both financially (as China dumps our debt) and militarily (as both nations perhaps engage in a nuclear exchange).
Unlike other authors, Coburn takes on the debt from a series of critical angles, not just partisan ones. This is done in a way that breaks through the fog of D.C.-speak and explains in plain terms the corruption all too present in Washington. The impacts of the debt on the unemployment rate, national security, retirement, social welfare, personal freedom, tax rates, energy reform, and morality each have portions of chapters (in some cases, whole chapters) dedicated to them. Additionally, Coburn aims to show just how much smaller government could be if we just eliminated fraud/waste/abuse/duplicity from the federal government...as much as one-third, or over $1 trillion per year (nearly $3,900 for every American every year). If nothing else, the disgust readers should have for their elected politicians is a victory in and of itself, and it should lead to a successive series of efforts by voters to term-limit members of Congress.
The most important reforms Coburn addresses are those related to duplication/oversight, military spending, taxes, and entitlements. With an envious lack of ego, Coburn looks at the problem from the perspective of an outsider involved in the process rather than as an elitist insider who knows all the answers. Does the senator have answers? Yes. Does he think his are the only ones? Absolutely not. While his own oversight reports and Back in Black solutions are regularly mentioned both in chapters and in an addendum, Coburn praises Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), among others, for truly working to find a way to defuse our debt bomb.
The inside baseball Coburn exposes should embarrass both members and their constituents. Earmarks, personal discussions, and careerism are all brought to the fore, but nothing is more "inside baseball" than the debate that took place leading up to the debt ceiling compromise last August. The utter dysfunction of Congress is laid bare in Coburn's descriptions of what happened. Meeting after meeting and discussion after discussion led to a deal that not only didn't cut spending, but actually grew spending by $2 trillion over ten years...and still left our nation's credit rating downgraded.
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