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The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan To Stop Washington From Bankrupting America (2012)

by Tom A. Coburn(Favorite Author)

4.17 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

159555467X (ISBN13: 9781595554673)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Thomas Nelson

review 1: I actually got fooled into reading this book seeing the 4 and over ratings on Goodreads without realizing that there were only 80 of them. But strangely I do not completely regret reading this book as much as I thought I would, especially, because it is written by an active politician. I only picked up the book in the first place just to know the extent of debt that US actually owes and to some extent, this book did give me a better picture of that topic. Anyways, Tom Coburn mainly targets Career Politicians in this book and also describes various issues like Inflation, Healthcare, Tax Reformation that are driving US to bankrupting itself according to him. Most of his plans sounded sensible to me and they convey the long held belief of lot of Republicans of limited governm... moreent. He gives quite a few examples of wasteful spending and of government programs that do the same thing that an earlier proposed program does. I found the entire chapter on Affordable Care Act and his proposed alternatives silly especially with the recent developments in Obamacare. Although, I personally believe it is a slippery slope at the moment, I do not really know the complete market and the economics to comment on this further. Overall, Dr. Tom Coburn (yes he is a doctor and a cancer survivor) came across as a politician with good intentions and with some of the views that I have started liking about what Government stands for (Libertarian). He came across as someone who walks the talk. Having said that, I would like to point out to other readers that good intentions doesn't necessarily mean right policies and in his own views, every politician enters politics with noble intentions. So tread carefully and make up your own mind if at all you are thinking of reading this one.
review 2: Aside from a few of the graphs in this book being indecipherable to me, it was really a surprisingly readable work. The American people need more sentinels in the Congress like Tom Coburn in order to effect budgetary change.Chapter after chapter, Coburn shows how the government has overstepped its original bounds and how our current crop of career politicians (on both sides of the aisle) has no interest in reining in spending because it can hurt their changes of re-election. There's a huge culture of tit-for-tat approval of earmarks while politicians openly complain about others' wasteful spending. There is plenty of unnecessary duplication of programs, needless bureaucracy, waste and abuse, and no one is keeping track of anything, and in fact, even pre-Obamacare, the government is so immense that no one can tell where the money is going.Coburn doesn't pull any punches in saying that our entitlement programs in this country MUST be reformed by raising the age of eligibility, means-testing, requiring more individual contribution, and cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse. His assertions are backed up with both economic data and anecdotal instances (ie, BHO saying that "I can't guarantee checks will go out on Aug 3 [2011] if we don't raise the debt ceiling").He also offers alternatives to the Affordable Care Act, which will require everyone to buy coverage but won't increase access to actual care, and astutely (he's been a physician for 30 years) points out how this program will make Medicaid and Medicare worse than they already are. He pinpoints many areas where the Department of Defense can reasonably be scaled back, especially with regard to civilian contracting, streamlining production, and modifying programs like Tricare for Retirees. less

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