Retiring senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) said House Republicans “lied” about the spending authorized in the continuing resolution that passed before lawmakers left the Capitol for the midterm campaign.
“You had this overwhelming vote, 77–22, for a lie,” Coburn told Laura Ingraham on Thursday afternoon, referring to the Senate vote for the continuing resolution.
Coburn said that the latest funding bill spent $46 billion more than was supposed to be permitted by the budget negotiated by House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Senate Budget Committee chair Patty Murray (R., Wash.).
“The whole CR was a lie in terms of the numbers associated with it,” he said. “And, remember, that started in House; that bill came from the House. That wasn’t senators manipulating that; that was a Republican House manipulating that.”
Ingraham put the focus on House speaker John Boehner, asking, “Why does John Boehner perpetuate the lie along with Democrats?”
“I don’t know,” Coburn said. “The fact is career politicians do not want to make hard choices, Laura. And we’ll never get the public support to make the tough decisions we need unless we’re honest with them about the severity of the problems that we face. And it’s so easy to spend $46 billion more than what you say you’re going to spend because the people that are going to suffer from us overspending aren’t here today. They are the generation M and younger, who are going to pay off this $46 billion that we lied about in this bill.”