Tom Coburn: “A lot has been made that we are going to borrow money to pay for this tax. But the fact is that the amount of money not…”

“A lot has been made that we are going to borrow money to pay for this tax. But the fact is that the amount of money not collected that is owed to the Federal Government is close to $400 billion a year. The other side of that is there is over $200 billion a year that has been proven to be wasteful or fraudulently misspent by this Government, which we condone each year. That is $600 billion. We would not be debating this tax if we were doing our job in terms of oversight. Just in terms of improper payments, is the Senator aware of the fact that there is over $150 billion a year paid out by the Federal Government to people who do not deserve it, have not earned it, and yet have manipulated the system to get it? I am not talking about poor people; I am talking about contractors. The point I want to make is that we would not even be having a discussion on the principles of this tax because it is not needed because we are not doing our jobs in terms of oversight. There is $600 billion that would put us into surplus by $200 billion right now, including the cost of the war, if we would just do our job. I wondered if the Senator was aware of that.”