Sen. Tom Coburn's new book, “The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting American,” critiques Congress in harsh terms and warns of further economic crisis if lawmakers do not get the nation’s deficit under control.
“Congress today is a stagnant pond that needs to be drained and refilled with a steady stream of new public servants,” he writes, according to excerpts provided to ABC News. “I’m a fan of the Jack Welch principle in reverse for Congress … fire 90 percent of members every election and only keep the 10 percent who were productive.”
Coburn, R-Okla., writes that the nation will face a debt crisis within two years if Congress does not enact a long-term deficit reduction plan, according to ABC. Doing nothing will lead to tax increases and cuts in entitlement programs, he argues.
The senator slams members of both parties for putting their political careers before the nation’s fiscal health -- "careerism" -- but criticizes Democrats in particular for refusing to embrace entitlement reform.
“Most politicians were content to sit in their partisan bunkers and cling to the illusion that they were holding a line, when the reality was, there were no more lines left to hold,” Coburn writes. “Both parties had betrayed their core beliefs and positions. We were under siege and surrounded on all sides, not by a foreign army but by foreign creditors.”
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