Tom Coburn

What is 'excessive speculation'? Because that is our whole problem.

The most recent version of the rule was rushed through the Commission and applied across the board to 28 separate commodities.

That futures markets cannot function without speculators who make markets, provide liquidity for hedgers, aid in price discovery, and take risks.

It is our obligation in Congress to make sure regulators act in the public interest, based on facts and data, rather than reflexively placing restrictions on unpopular market participants.

I want to thank Senator Levin for holding this hearing today. He has been a leader for years in Congress on efforts to better understand and monitor commodity markets.

Of a transparent market.

What the Senator from Maine just said is that $4.2 million is going to be unsuccessful and $2.8 million might be. The fact is that with a $1.3 trillion deficit and a $15 trillion debt, we can't continue to do this no matter how great it…

This is a straightforward amendment on a program that fails 70 percent of the time. We spend $35 million a year. It has an abject failure rate. Only 30 percent of it results in anything positive happening; 70 percent of the time it does…

I have worked with Senator Tom Coburn, with Senator Brown, and with others on this panel to work on bipartisan legislation that curbs waste and fraud in both Medicaid and in Medicare.

This is an important change, and, again, I want to hear more about that today as well.

I look forward to hearing more about this suggestion from our witnesses today.

This is clearly unacceptable.

We need to be honest about what these findings mean. They mean that Federal dollars intended to address the health needs of the elderly and the poor are instead being used to feed addictions or to pad the wallets of drug dealers.

I am a big fan of IGs. I think generally they do a super job.

Financial management systems DOD has put in place to control and monitor the money flow do not facilitate but actually prevent DOD from collecting and reporting financial information that is accurate, reliable, and timely.

No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in a consequence of appropriations made by law.

We have a distinct obligation under the Constitution to defend the country and I appreciate all of your service in that regard.

This is a straightforward amendment that says if you pay into the Patent Trademark Office to have a patent evaluated, that money ought to be spent on the process. We have now stolen almost $900 million from the Patent Office. We have…

I actually voted against the postal reform bill because we did not fix what we knew were the problems.

First-Class Mail is going away. And unless the business model adapts to that, it does not matter what we do.

The revenue estimates we have for 2020 are absolutely an exaggeration.

The absolute stupidity of Congress and what we have done to the Postal Service is just totally amazing to me.

July 28, 2011 Letter to Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner, Social Security Administration from Senator Tom A. Coburn, M.D. and Senator Carl Levin.

Thank you, again, Madam Chairman, for calling this important hearing.

I am troubled by cases where we are spending billions of dollars on ERPs that accomplish little more than lining the pockets of contractors.