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tom coburn is coming up. but first, the headlines. >> hi, gret a.me under fire in syria, as they try to get to the latest massacre scene. activists say government troops killed nearly 80 people, many, women and children. the syrian government blamed terrorists. the danger of a full-scale war is imminent and real and the consequences would be catastrophic for the entire region. police spending hours combing through the home of a suspected murderer in a decades-old missing child kiss, confessing to killing etan patz. i'm marianne rafferty. now back to "on the record." >> greta: almost $16 trillion. that's the federal debt right now. shouldn't the government be doing everything it can to pay down the debt? that does seem obvious. but get this -- more than $70 billion in federal funds is sitting in old accounts, unspent and wasted. that's right congress appropriates that money for everything from education to highways, but it sits in bank accounts, never spent. how could that be possible? we asked tom coburn? >> $70 billion, doing nothing, no effort's b

senate rules allow a single senator to put a secret hold on a bill effectively killing a senator tom coburn alone one of the participants of that meeting at the caucus room restaurant did this over and over and over to prevent anyone obama successes with hold on bill that funded the f.a.a. funded highway repairs funded veterans' benefits funded food safety funded health care for nine eleven responders funding the new smithsonian museum about women's history fund the nine eleven memorial fund and bike paths in cities all over the nation funded wildlife protection on and on it went. republicans now say obama quote controlled the house and senate for two years but it's a lie the men from that meeting at the caucus room restaurant controlled the legislative outcome even sabotaging obama's stimulus and obamacare so that instead of becoming strong progressive programs that became essentially giveaways to big banks and health insurance companies they were so successful the federal spending has increased year to year under obama at a lower rate than any president since president eisenhower and you

senator tom coburn is the author of the debt to stop washington from bankrupting america.ow. we will talk more about the debt bomb coming up, but are we looking at another fight on tax cuts all over again? >> i don't know. i think you are seeing a lot of posturing. we need to reform the tax code. everybody gets it. we got into the short-term extensions that puts everybody in a box. we need to do a combination of things. we need to modify and save medicare and social security and reform the tax code and decrease spending in terms of discretionary. nobody wants to do the hard work of doing those things. they would rather have the argument about what the status quo is. to me it's disgusting. >> when you say no one wants to do the hard work, can't that be defined as republicans will say no to certain things and democrats will say no as it pertains to taxes and tax cuts and they will never be compromise and they will never do what they don't want to do? >> no, the problem is there is a lack of leadership. when you talked to senators privately, they agree we have to change socia

senator tom coburn of oklahoma released this new report to encourage debate about the role of governmentmoting private market goods. take a look at examples of the spending. according to this report, blue diamond growers received $28.2 million since 1999 to help market its products overseas. in 2009 alone, they sold $709 million of nuts. california wine institute received $60 million in the past decade. in order to conduct wine tours, marketing and other events promoting $18 billion per year industry. cotton council international received $169 million in the last decade. some spent on indian reality tv show where contestants make clothes out of cotton. then there is the livestock genetics group which received $14 million since 1999. for marketing livestock semen. tom coburn is planning to offer amendment to farm bill to reduce funding. >> the point is nobody is measuring the effectiveness of the program. there is no metrics on it to say this is what it's done. when you look at the total share of world markets and how we have seen a decline we taught be questioning it. >> usda spokesman m

dick armey, bill paxon, steve largent, saxby chambliss, john sununu, lindsey graham, tom coburn, susan molinari, john kasich, bill zellef, and i know i've missed some. >> guest: right. c-span: almost -- other than tom delay and a couple of others, the team that you started out with are gone. >> guest: well, you know, that happens in congress today. people used to say, well, you know, you go to congress, those people are there forever. the term limit -- you know, the term limit issue and all those things that we talked about -- you know, the average -- i don't know what exactly the average term of a congressman, but it used to be for a long time. today, it's probably eight years or ten years is the average time that a person stays here. and they cycle off and do something else. a lot of those folks that you mentioned are either in the senate or headed for the senate so i mean, they step up and do other things. saxby chambliss and lindsey graham, and coburn's running for the senate, and others. so you know, there's other careers, too. c-span: tom coburn did this show once, and it was --

grover, when i lay all this out, i hear jeb bush and all these senators, tom coburn, republicans saying board. and you're going up to talk to them. it sort of sounds like you're a little afraid. >> no. this is a request from the ways and means committee and the republican study committee to talk about how the taxpayer protection pledge will help with tax reform next year. the taxpayer protection pledge was created in 1986 in order to help pass the reagan tax reform act, which was revenue neutral and it was designed both to protect -- to get that passed and to protect passage, so that in the future, politicians wouldn't raise rates or broaden the base. point of fact, the pledge is not only important for stopping tax increases. it's necessary to get real tax reform because if you don't, have enough numbers committee to not allow tax numbers -- the american people won't trust congress to reform taxes, which is what we need to do. >> what about these headlines? "the l.a. times" has talked about these people saying, i'm not sure about the pledge. it sounds like a lot of republicans are reali

to agree to real cuts in entitlements and tax reform, and i assure you he will get people like tom coburn who will agree to increases in taxes in the simpson committee. i would go for it, and the party would go for it. >> ok, prophecy. the historically progressive wisconsin recalls its controversial conservative governor. >> i have got some bad news for tom barrett, but good news for wisconsin. as it turns out, wisconsin actually gained -- that's right, gained -- more than 20,000 new jobs during my first year in office. >> that is wisconsin gov. scott walker, making the case that he should keep his job in the tuesday recall election. most polls show him with a slim lead over tom barrett, the democrat. in a state known as midwestern ice, this campaign has been anything but -- midwestern nice, as campaign has been anything but. what is the significance of this in 2012, charles krauthammer? >> it is huge. some say it will have an effect on the presidential. i am not sure, but it will surely have an effect on the state of the unions in america. this is the big one. this the third shot that un

. >>> today senator tom coburn released a report that says tens of billions of tax dollars have essentially gone to waste in recent years because they've been unused, money that congress earmarked for certain projects but was never spent. coburn, a republican from oklahoma, says more than $70 billion are sitting in bank accounts. so why doesn't congress just take back the money? here's coburn's answer. >> i could write a bill that would get all that money back. the question is it would never get to the floor. they don't want to fight the political bat of saying he gave and take a -- battle of saying he gave and take away. they don't want that negative press. >> democratic senator mark warner is also concerned and is pushing for a law that would give congress a better han l on what's spent and show in real -- handle on what's spent and show in realtime when there's money just sitting around. >>> police on the lookout for a grandmother tonight accused of gambling away her grandson's college trust fund. 73-year-old edna sue pate is accused of stealing $100,000 from her grandson christian. she

. >> you have to give credit to two people, tom coburn and dick durbin. until somebody is willing to do that, we will have a deal -- won't have a deal. >> those guys are heroes. >> regardless of how politically useful these leaks may have been to the president, they have to stop. >> jay carney at the white house says that any suggestion that the administration has leaked for political gain is open " grossly irresponsible." there have been a bunch of stories lately -- secret operations against al qaeda at, the president's hands-on role in the so-called kill list, cyber attacks against iran. how was this stuff getting out, evan? >> leaks from the white house. i don't think it is just the white house. i listened to tapes of john f. kennedy, a pretty cool guy, and a one time i ever heard him really blow up was about leaks. leaks drive people crazy. >> was jay carney right that there was no political motivation here? >> no. [laughter] but you're leak is my scope. is my scoop. no question that i.t. is partly to burnish the president's credentials as commander-i

in the senate to put a hold on a bill and prevent it from coming to the floor and in particular tom coburn dr no do that over and over and over again there is a difference our final comment the one comes from cap to bops who had this take on sheldon adelson ten million dollars donation to mitt romney's campaign. this could very well be the downfall of romney's campaign all the dems have to do is point out that the rich are trying to buy the election and the public should vote against that at least they do in california such as with michael huffington meg whitman and carly fiorina if i were dictator of the world one wouldn't be allowed to have an estate worth more than a few million dollars and would be taxed progressively so they could accumulate massive wealth we're learning a lesson here. well you know huey long talked about that at some length back in the in the early part of the twentieth century and he got pretty popular for i mean he basically said let's put a cap on wealth period let's you know somebody as i recall his first proposal was five million dollars which today would be abo

including medicare, social security, and medicaid, which is what the gang of six plan endorsed by tom coburn, saxby chambliss, lamar alexander and mike crepo and others have, you'll have a hard time backing away from that and that's a different marker other than republicans like john boehner have laid down. as soon as they got to the diamond issues eric cantor backed out and made it clear there wouldn't be any negotiations over that sort. we're now dealing with a world in which there will be some increases overall because we have a population that's aging, and living longer. that, however you want to deal with t we are going to have some increases in entitlements, although we can curb that rate of growth but when you've got taxes that are at the lowest level of gdp since the 1950s, the idea that cutting them further will enable you to deal with deficits and debt i find just bizarre. >> okay, the next question, there are members of -- i get this question all the time when i give speeches. this is one of the classic questions of any speaker. we have members of the media here so this is a terri

tom coburn never one to shy away from a fight with norquist said this week in an interview quote, the well to do are okay paying some more tax as long as the taxes are going to pay down the debt not going go grow the government, unquote. on those strong words from coburn national review said, that kind of talk may not please grover norquist, the president of americans for tax reform, but coburn doesn't care. other republicans are deciding they don't care about norquist either. jeb bush as respected a figure -- jeb bush as respected a figure that exists right now in the modern republican party decided to take him on in a very high profile way. this was a big deal. jeb bush is a heavy weight on the side of those republicans who want reform. who want fiscal responsibility. jeb may run for president in four years. many on the other side wanted him to run this time. he dismissed the norquist pledge. and basically declared grover norquist to be a gnat that other republicans should just brush away. joe scarborough said in a fight between jeb bush and grover norquist quote, jeb bush's republi

host: tom coburn on "washington journal." back to phone calls. richard, you are on. caller: good morning. i think grover norquist -- first of all, i wouldn't sign the pledge. but i think grover norquist should go ahead and concentrate on the cities and counties. because they are spending us into oblivion, the property taxes here are so high you can't live in the city. they are driving people out of homes and then they blame it on other things like whatever they try to blame it on. it's because of the high property tax, and they try to blame it on the banks. i think grover norquist, nobody elected him. he's a drip, or to me. nobody elected him. i think the congress and senate should get a backbone and not have another showdown like they had last year on the budget and get the country moving again. in other words, the senates and congressman should get it back and forget about grover norquist. he's a drip. thank you very much. host: thank you, richard. here's and mail from don who writes to us. host: here's another e-mail from david in seattle, washington. host: next i

senator tom coburn, he was putting a hold on a genetic info bill.mportant for a company called affymetrix. in 2008 he released the hold and then bought $20,000 of worth of stock. then he voted for a bill that would help them. what a wild coincidence. no, my financial adviser runs my things. did i end up signing that bill? and did that help the company? golly gee, you got me on that one. representative ed whitfield does this more than anybody in congress. 38% of trades involve those that are in front of him. g.e. stocks he held for 12 years. right before he's about to filibuster a bill that will help g.e. he sells $50,000 to $100,000 of stocks. then they torpedo the bill and then golly gee, how did i make money off of that? and then finally let's go to congressman michael mccaul. there is a food and safety bill in front of him in 2009. it was going to help thermofisher scientific. so he bought stock to the tune of $286,000 to $290,000. will you look at that, thanks to representative mccaul and the republicans, the bill passed. boy, this is a lot of c

including medicare, so security, and medicare which is what the gang of six plan endorsed by tom -- by tom coburn and others did, you will have a hard time backing away from that and you have laid down a marker that is different from what republicans other than john boehner have laid down. as soon as they got to a dime of revenues in negotiations, eric cantor walked out admitted clear there would not be any negotiation over that period we are now dealing with a world in which there will be some increases overall because we have a population that is aging and living longer. however you want to deal with it, we will have some increases in entitlements although we can curb that rate of growth. when you got taxes better at los level of gdp since the 1950's, the idea that cutting them further will enable you to deal with deficits and debt i find just bizarre. >> the next question -- i get this question all the time. this is one of the classic questions of an icebreaker. we have members of the media here so this is an opportunity to beat up on somebody. we will start with you -- how much does the media

the initiative made it to tom coburn's 2011 waste book as an example of low priority government spendingburn says, "the fact that washington ever thought funding foreign puppets was a legitimate role for the federal government speaks volumes about why our debt is out of control." the space shuttle enterprise never actually made it to space. though it has had quite a journey to time resting place in manhattan. the enterprise cruised past the statue of liberty before arriving by barge at the intrepid sea, air, space museum tuesday. tip of a wing scraped piling to cause daniel. in 1977, enterprise used for series of approach and landing tests. it was originally to be named constitution. but a fierce letter writing campaign by star trek fans convinced white house officials to rename it after the ship of the iconic television program. >>> from star trek to come ib books. thanks to the eagle eye comic loving viewers we realized grapevine failed to put a picture of the original green lat tern allen scott seen left in friday's story about the d.c. comic outing the character as gay. we showed the

senator tom coburn releasing a report highlighting more than $70 billion in unspent federal money.he house budget committee chairman paul ryan warns that president obama's economic polices will push the u.s. off a fiscal cliff. this from hannity: >> what we're saying and what i believe and what all the experts that come to testify to the budget committee are saying is we've got about two years before we have a debt crisis like europe is experiencing. what's going to happen, like europe, politicians have made the empty promises which turned into broken promises, the bond market has turned on you and you have a debt crisis, cranking up taxes, cutting benefits for current seniors, slowing down your economy, having a lost decade. we're half way through a lost decade because of this president's polices. if we stay in the path he's on not only will we have a real lost decade but a lost generation and i fear we'll have that debt crisis which is entirely avoidableful bill: that is a father of four speaking. art laffer was former advisor to president ronald reagan. how you doing? >> doing f

in fact, senator tom coburn led the most well balanced approach, common sense reform while presidentng to reform this. >> rick: when do we need to hear the specifics about it? >> i think -- i don't think you will hear specifics about necessarily any of this until after the election and you don't have to. the american people don't like obamacare. they don't like its cost. they don't like what it's already done to the system and they're not going to like it in 2014 when the real cost begins to hit. rick, i don't care what your studies say, the analysis that i read and trust says 1.7 trillion over the next ten years that will be the largest tax increase and it's not a tax increase that's aimed at people who can afford it the way josh misrepresented it. it's actually a tax increase aimed at people who make too much money to qualify for medicare and medicaid, but not enough money to be able to purchase it on their own. we're talk being families that make 40 to $60,000 a year. primary target of who will be penalized by this tax as it has been properly defined by the supreme court. >> rick:

but that was not true of the meeting with senator tom coburn. they did not wait.st month the senate ethics committee reprimanded him for improper conduct of the case. it was the equivalent of a hand slap for the senator who i should note has never answered our many requests for clarification on whether he cooperated with the ensign investigation in exchange for any kind of immunity. since john ensign quit the senate rather than testify, the senate ethics committee deems the matter closed, but in court today somebody pled guilty and may go to jail, but who is it who might go to jail? by now you have probably guessed. it's the husband, john ensign's former best friend, whose wife the senator slept with, the guy who lost his job with the senator because of that. doug hampton was originally charged with seven felonies for violating the lobbying ban in the lobbyist job that john ensign set him up in. but today he pled down to a misdemeanor mep could get anywhere from potentially no jail time up to maybe six months but the judge could go higher. moral of the story, if y

senator ryan and tom coburn are both here. and donald trump has big news and he has lots of it.tes away. but first, fireworks exploding on capital hill and it got loud -- it got very loud. skewering eric holder over operation

i write many letters to a lot of senators and everything else trying to put up tom coburn. believe he is probably the best in congress. if i were economically able to, i would buy 1 billion copies of his greatest book, the debt bomb. i would distributed to schools across the united states to be used in their social studies programs. he makes more sense than anybody i have never heard in congress. i was the could have drafted him on the republican ticket. that is really all i have to say. thank you. host: coming up next on "washington journal." we will talk with brian beutler to hear about what congress faces later this week. we will look at the impact an expiration of the bush tax cuts. we will be right back. >> we welcome you to the missouri governor's mansion. >> here we have a photograph of the first governor, his wife, and his son. what is interesting is his granddaughter roche the book midnight moon, which is of course a favorite of many children. >> book andtv explored the culture of jefferson city. >> the story says he rode his horse to the mansion and proceeded to f

so the secret talks include some of the patriots that want to do a deal like republican tom coburn and democrat mark warner who have been telling me for a while that they're working on a deal. but there need to be a lot more elected leaders who understand the urgency of this moment and are willing to compromise. chris van hollen of maryland is the top democrat on the house budget committee. he joins me tonight. good to see you, sir. the fed chairman was pleading with you guys today. he really was pleading. are you all still counting on some level the fed could bail congress out, do something else, some more quantitative easing so the congress doesn't have to act this summer? >> no, we're not counting on that, erin. ben bernanke is exactly right, congress should get its act together, needs to get its act together to prevent the fiscal cliff, which would hurt the economy, and also come up with a long-term plan to reduce the deficit. so we also deal with that long-term issue. there are bipartisan models for how to do this that have been put forward by groups like the simpson-bowles group.

top cut revenue when everyone know, tom coburn, one of the most conservative members of the senate, understandsevenue. governor romney's idea cutting taxes will produce economic growth. andrea, you know for the last 60 years our biggest job creation occurred when the marginal tax race is 50, 60, 70% knop correlation to this. bill clinton raised taxes in 1993 on the most successful americans. republicans said we're going to get thrown into a recession. we gained 23.5 million jobs in the next 6.5 years. so there's no correlation to that, and the romney plan is no plan at all. the president has the best plan, no ifs, ands and buts about it. >> ed rendell. the book is "the nation of wooses." thank you very much. >> funny book. >> fun book. funny and fun. >> yes. >> thank you very much. someone moo knwho knows how to politics fun. >>> up next, the first president bush as you have never seen him as he approaches his 80th birthday next week. a new documentary about bush 41. this is andrea mitchell only on msnbc. emily's just starting out... and on a budget. like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she

but tom coburn, pat toomey, the gang of six, simpson-bowles commission-- all said let's flatten and broadenx base. let's eliminate deduction, and when you ask him how many deductions? i think we should eliminate all deductions except interest on your home and charitable giving with a cap, take that money back into the treasure-- it's a trillion a year we give away in deductions-- and use most of it to pay down tax rates and about one-fourth of it to pay down the debt. that's what simpson-bowles, the gang of six, the super committee tried to do. and i'm confident that's what governor romney would embrace. >> schieffer: you know-- >> and here's the bottom-- here's the bottom line, bob. we're not going to get entitlement reform from democrats unless we put revenue on the table as republicans. and i'm not going to put revenue on the table as i describe without entitlement reform. we know what to do. we should do it. and we're not going to do it without presidential leadership. so i hope governor romney and president obama will do something before the election to show this leadership. >> i agree

. >> that's tom coburn, i believe.ce. >> adorable at age 5. >> i believe that's nancy pelosi. she sent us her photograph as well. >> katherine mcphee, one of the u.n. ambassadors on this. >> secretary clinton. >> secretary clinton, now former president bill clinton. that was in hope, arkansas. do we have your picture in there? >> we do. we have nearly 1,000 photographs. >> that is someone i recognize, me and my older sister. yeah. it's hard to take, but yeah. >> our effort is really about making sure every child gets -- >> and raj. >> take that one down. i am not proud of my fashion choices when i was 5. it makes the point, i have three young kids and when they get injured or hurt, we get to go to the hospital and it's a difficult circumstance. imagine around the world when these kids, when a family loses a child or loses two or three children -- >> completely preventible. >> preventible. not only tragic, it affects the ability of communities to grow and educate themselves and move themselves out of poverty and be stab