Tom Coburn

Give them the freedom that they fought for.

We take a series of commonsense steps to identify and prevent fraud and waste in Medicare and Medicaid.

This new law aimed at making agencies and agency leadership far more accountable for the expensive mistakes that they make.

I believe a lot more work needs to be done to identify, recover and prevent improper payments.

There is now a companion bill in the House led by Congressman Peter Roskam and Congressman Carney from Delaware.

I would make a couple points. One, we already file all our stock trades--correct?--every year.

I have one more question for the chairman. If, in fact, this is what we should do--and I think the body is going to agree this is what we should do--does not the Senator think this should apply to the administration as well, the executive…

Well, I have plenty of those. In fact, I will do better-- I will give you a Zantac.

Through the Chair, would the chairman accept that modification to my amendment, that we would, in fact, establish positively that Members of Congress are under rule 10b of the Securities and Exchange Commission? Would that give the Senator…

I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to offer an amendment to the Standing Rules of the Senate, by proposing…

The point is you got to still make the choice with your privacy, and I think there is a legitimate concern...

I am just saying in terms of effectuating the protection of privacy, how are we going to do that?

I believe the decision is between protecting privacy and promoting commerce, and I think we ought to be able to figure out how to do both.

I believe the Video Privacy Protection Act has become antiquated given all the new technology that is out there.

The question is: Should we err on the side of privacy, or should we err on the side of commerce?

I know it is our role to be concerned about the ultimate privacy protection that individuals deserve.

But if privacy is so important and if everybody at the table supports that, what is wrong with having the reminder that you are sharing your privacy?

I really do not see a big difference from granting permission one click at a time to a blanket consent.

I am going to give you consent, Netflix, to share my movies.

But the point is I have to, under the ethics law, fill out forms at the end of every year, and I have to get that.

So what is the difference of having an opt-in or an opt-out? It defeats your whole argument.

Well, actually, that was my whole point. We are going to spend a little more than 2 hours to raise the debt limit by $1.2 trillion, and we can't give a Senator 20 minutes to talk about it?

The reason they are set up in offshore is to eliminate that corporate tax on those trades, correct?

I think there is lost revenue because if, in fact, a mutual fund is going to invest in a company that does commodity trading and does not do it in a tax-sheltered location, they are going to pay taxes on that, trading profits before they…

Is the purpose for setting up an offshore commodities trading firm to avoid taxes?