Sen. Coburn: The Real Problem is Us

Sen. Tom Coburn had some tough words for America during a meeting of Obama's debt commission:

“Nobody is looking at what the real problem is. And the real problem is us,” said the recently bearded Oklahoma Republican.

“We have way too much government and not enough of the thing that made America great, which is independence, personal responsibility and self-reliance,” he said. “We have abandoned the principles which made America exceptional, which wasn’t the government. It was the people. It was us relying on ourselves, not saying I can take a pass and depend on the government.”

He pointed to what he said are too many people who are receiving disability payments from the government as one example, and to the fact that two new categories of disabilities are in the process of being created right now. He added that the government should help “those who cannot fix their situation any other way.”

The senator said that historically democratic republics only last about 200 years before they “rot from within” and then are conquered militarily.

“And we’re rotting. We’re rotting as we sit here and speak today,” he said. But he said the committee could help set a different course to “cheat history.”

“History says we’re not going to make it,” he said. “The way we cheat history is for all of us to give up something: everybody at this table give up something, and then say, ‘The way forward for America is for everyone to start sacrificing so we create a future that is honoring the tremendous sacrifices that came before us.’”

Good advice. But to Democrats the purpose of the government is to take one person's money and give it to someone else. At some point you run out of other people's money, but the people on the receiving end don't want to hear that and they'll keep voting for the people they think will keep the money coming.