NYMag: Coburn Exposed the Insanity of DC for One Night, Then Gave Up
Last Week, a Senator Exposed the Insanity of Washington for One Night, Then Gave Up
By Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
Last Thursday night, there was a rare, fleeting, and almost totally unnoticed moment on the Senate floor that lent a brief glimpse into the madness that has settled so deeply into the background of Washington that hardly anybody notices it anymore. In the midst of a debate about extending funding for Iron Dome, the U.S.-funded anti-missile system protecting Israeli civilians from death and destruction at the hands of a Hamas blitzkrieg, Tom Coburn insisted on blocking the passage. “I want to fund Israel,” announced the Oklahoma Republican. “I also want to make sure our children have a future.”
What Coburn meant by this was that he supported the underlying objective, but opposed its price tag of $225 million, or approximately six-hundredths of one percent of the federal budget. The implications of Coburn’s stand were so terrifying, immediate, and devastating to the security of Israel, not to mention the prospective Republican Senate majority, that he quickly backed down, and the next morning the two parties swiftly approved the funding. But the principle of the point lay there, unaddressed. You could say that Tom Coburn is upholding his party’s principles in a courageous and consistent fashion. You could also say he is a dangerous, ideological fanatic. Both those descriptions would be correct.
The sort of hyperbolic rhetoric used by Coburn here — “make sure our children have a future” — is, if anything, a subdued version of the sorts of claims Republicans have routinely made since President Obama took office. It justified the extraordinary tactics the party used to confront Obama. Risking a debt default was necessary in order to save the country from the Greece-like meltdown that was certain to happen, or may already be in the process of happening. They have given up on the default games of chicken, and mostly given up on the fearful nightmare rhetoric as well.
And that hysterical period has left behind a powerful residue. Republicans continue to cling to an opposition to spending that has paralyzed basic government functions. The purported logic is that any “new” spending must be offset, so as not to increase the deficit. Republicans are happy to exempt spending on agriculture subsidies, or targeted tax breaks for businesses. They oppose on alleged fiscal-responsibility grounds such things as emergency unemployment benefits.