Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Coburn: Social Security Should Be Offset to Save His State

Today Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the latest recipient of (either) God’s Wrath (or) a natural disaster has drawn a line in the sand and required that any and all federal funds that come to his state in the form or disaster relief be offset by spending cuts to federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
 
That’s it. That’s the ticket. Let’s let the elderly pay for the disaster that befell Tom Coburn’s state yesterday.
They caused it after all.
They did.
They did if you go by Tom Coburn’s fellow Oklahoma Bible Pounders who relate every natural disaster to God’s Wrath. It must have been the transgressions of the elderly because…because they have been around awhile and have had the most opportunity to sin.
But really, how all of this is going to work toward Tom Coburn’s strategy is beyond me. What happens if we Americans, through our largesse ask for no offsets to help Oklahomans dig themselves out of this horrific disaster? What happens if we Americans, through our own sense of self-preservation tell Oklahomans that if they want us to give up our Social Security benefits, benefits that we have paid for lock, stock, and barrel, or give up our Medicare benefits because, well, ditto, then they can just go and dig themselves out of their own mess?
See, Tom Coburn is stuck between a rock and something hard. He voted against federal aid for Hurricane Sandy victims. He couldn’t very well vote for aid to his own state now, could he? Of course not. So now Tom Coburn has placed himself in the impossible position of having to ask Americans to give up their retirement benefits so his constituents can have low interest loans to rebuild their houses and lives.
And to this I have to say, H-e-double-hockey-sticks no. No way, Tom. If you want to put a condition on federal aid, a condition on helping your constituents, a condition that degrades my golden years, well then go fix your own state.

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