Tom Coburn: “Well, thank goodness for our health care system, because in fact we have increased longevity to a tremendous amount, and…”

“Well, thank goodness for our health care system, because in fact we have increased longevity to a tremendous amount, and that has been a detriment on the Social Security trust fund in terms of how they calculated what was going to be needed. But we should not get tied up in that issue. The issue is, is it ethical to say that our deficit is $107 billion when in fact it is $172 billion. That is why people lack confidence in this body, is because we do not have the courage to oftentimes make the tough decisions because we will not face up to the facts. The American public needs to know that the deficit is much larger than what they have been taught and it is much larger because of moneys borrowed from payments into the Social Security system. It needs to stop. It needs to stop because we owe that honesty to the American public.”