Book review Breach of Trust by Tom Coburn
In his book, Breach of Trust, Tom Coburn narrates some of his experience in the US House of representatives as a congressman. He is a former businessman and a practicing physician with equally ardent views about the congress, religion and implementation of the constitution. Tom Coburn is a true legislator and he even honored his pledge of serving for only three terms as a congressional representative then leave Washington. Breach of trust offers a candid look at the internal workings of congress, and why ‘Washington turns insiders into outsiders’. The reader’s are served with shocking behind-the-scenes stories and why the reforms that the country needs so badly are opposed to and informed decisions about current and future political matters are not welcomed. This book offers an honest look at the usual ‘business of the house’ and why freshly elected representatives are easily seduced into becoming career politicians who only become interested in being re-elected but do not push for change. All along the book, Tom Coburn offers realistic and applicable ideas on how to we can make a difference in our governance.
In the year 1994, while still working as a practicing physician, Coburn was watching a culture decline at a medical practitioner’s perspective. He saw firsthand the destructive consequences of the trend by which people avoided responsibility and eliminated the harmful results of questionable behavior in our society. There had been a sharp increase in the HIV/AIDS level in the country and the government was only trying to cover up this epidemic for fear of offending the free-sex and homosexual societies whom they felt were politically correct. He felt that the country was ineffective in the HIV prevention policy and something urgent had to be done. He says in his book that he was among the millions of Americans who were increasingly getting frustrated with Washington, weary of a group of greedy congress but above all, horrified by President Clintons attempt to socialize medicine. Change was needed but who was to provide it? This is when the idea of running for office hit his mind.
The Book portrays Tom Coburn as a maverick and one of the most conservative members of the congress. He was armed to make abortion illegal and championed for the reduction of the size of the federal budget. He had so many policies and bills that he wanted be passed for the betterment of the country. However, because of his enthusiasm in interfering with the status quo in the house, he often got into endless fights with the house speaker Mr. Newt Gingrich. Most of these battles ensued because Tom Coburn believed that the Republicans in the house were deviating from its conservative policy proposal ‘Contract With America’ that enabled them into power for the first time 1921 and were now moving towards the more political centered policies of Washington.
I will agree with Tom Coburn’s witty explanation that the term-limited politicians are better than career politicians. Tom Coburn had promised to serve in the house for just three terms and then withdraw from elective politics. He was easily re-elected back to the congress in 1996 as well as in 1998 after which he honored his pledge and did not run for an elective office as a congressman again. He explained using examples of his experience in the house and the many conversations that he had been engaged in with Congressmen and Senators. He said that the reforms in the Medicare industry would never come to pass if we continued to put career politicians in office. He candidly urged the people not to vote for a career politician since their key interest is being re-elected back to power but were never interested in doing something about the Status Quo that existed in the House of Representatives.
The book is praised for having championed for proper and effective constitution implementation. Coburn felt that the constitution was being disrespected and viewed as just a document with rules and regulations on paper only. He quotes Horatio Bunce, one of the constituent representatives addressing the colonel. “So you see, Colonel, You have violated the constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the constitution, there is no limit to it’(Coburn, 15,) He passionately says that the modern politicians will always do anything and support any program as long as it will help them win the elections. In his conversation, he asks if we will trust these politicians or are we going to honor our founding fathers who worked tirelessly on drafting the constitution by following it as expected?
Although Tom was a republican, He tried as much as possible to appear non-partisan in his days in the congress and portrays this trait in his book.. He exposes both the Republican Party and the democrats too. Conflicts of him with the career politicians from the republican party was manifested in 1995 when he went with two other elected doctors, Greg Ganske (R-Iowa) and Dave Weldon (R-Florida) to meet the then Chairman Bill Thomas (R-California) of the Influential House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee to discuss issues concerning Medicare. He thought that the more than forty years experience combined would be of immense importance only to be by Thomas, whom he considered to be a republican career politician, that there is nothing they can teach him about Medicare. This was because Thomas was among the people who were opposed to his Medicare plan that would have reduced government spending by 6%, the career Republicans were scared that the public would accuse them of being incompetent in their service delivery
I acknowledge that Tom Coburn is a very wise leader; he explained the problems facing the Americans in very simple and logical ways all along his book. He said that the politician’s fear that the public might punish them for not being able to govern the issues affecting the common citizens of America is a total nonsense. He claimed that this fear was a product of Washington mentality and should not be associated with desires of the ordinary people across America. He criticized career politician’s perspective of good governance. They assumed that keeping the government open was the best measure of good governance. It is my opinion and that of most of the Americans that Tom was correct on this issue. It was not of any help for the career politicians to assume they were efficient in their governance when they keep the government open for public criticism while on the other hand they do not tame the government spending and just roll out numerous new restrictive laws.
Coburn is credited with introducing the HIV prevention Act of 1997, which was endorsed by the American Medical Association and was meant to amend the Social Security Act. The bill was to serve the purpose of confidentially notifying HIV exposure to diagnosed sexual partners and offer testing and counseling services to them. Tom was passionate about taking the levels of HIV/AIDS down. In fact, the shocking statistics he was getting were among the major drivers that lead him to vie for this elective post in order to try and do something about the current health situation facing the society. He further introduced a bill that would have seen insurance companies prohibited from discriminating against people tested for HIV, regardless of the results in addition to passing a bill that expanded the coverage of AIDs patients enrolled in Medicare.
Apart from medical care, the book addresses the issue of the economy significantly, He claims that democrats and republican parties are slowly bankrupting our future and advises best on how to the public should handle this. Tom sounds honest and candor and his real life examples say it all. He sheds light on the numerous faults in Washington that usually go unnoticed. He explains first how we got there but first explains his views and concludes that the major cause of these problems was because of ignoring the constitution. This made him get into many standoffs with the speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich. In his perception, was always quick to compromise conservative principles and he never admitted to his mistakes. Coburn quotes Gingrich ‘’ The eleven geniuses who thought they knew more than the rest of the Congress are going to come up and explain their votes,” someone leaned over to [then-Rep.] Mark Sanford and said, “I have never heard of anyone having to explain their vote.” Gingrich continued, “Those of you who had planned to go to John Kasich’s wedding on Saturday are not going. No one is going anywhere until we get the votes we need to pass this rule’’(Coburn, p142) excerpt from the book explains why Coburn was constantly in wars with the house speaker due to his stubbornness and lack of cooperation by making all of their efforts futile. The message of political dishonesty manifests itself as Newt Gingrich, one of the most powerful Republican in the mid-nineties In the congress used his powers to engineer plots that would be used to backstab his own party members. Gingrich topped it off by accusing Clinton, while he was also leading a don’t-care public life that was not appealing to the people. Clinton and Gingrich assumed that their personal lives did not matter in public but from this book, Tom in his book has described and portrayed through his life that personal character is an essential when one wants to gain the favor of the people.
Throughout the book, Tom condemns how the freshmen elected come with great and fresh ideas for the good of the citizens but as soon as they join the congress, they are absorbed into the old ways of doing things and immediately turned into career politicians. Tom has shown immense support for the promotion of good social morals. He courageously opposed the legalization of Homosexuality and abortion. In the year 2000, sponsored a controversial bill on abortion that failed with a 182/187 vote of the house of representatives. It was his remark ‘ I propose death penalty for people who take peoples life including abortionists’ that arguably led to much controversy and its eventual defeat.
Breach of trust has proven to be a very informative and interesting book which has been organized with truths, myths, dangers and appropriate actions to be taken for good leadership to take place. Tom Coburn’s conclusion is a cumulative three-term congressional representative shows us that both the democrats and republicans as corrupt and incompetent in representing the people..As an ordinary citizen, I find this book suggesting that America is ready to demand its fair share of their sweat and tax through ensuring that politics has not been made a career by individuals who only wants to hold onto power and do not work on improving the lives of their citizens. The major theme in this book is about implementation of the constitution, bills that benefits the ordinary people and removing career politicians in office. Dr. Coburn surprisingly admits that he will not pretend to be perfect and freely admits to his own mistakes.
I would recommend this book to any person who is a fiscal conservative and wants to know how Washington operates its functions and why in most cases it fails to deliver. Dr. Coburn spares no one when providing inside information and how we can safeguard our country from falling victims of poor governance . The book revolves purely on the life of Tom Coburn whom I consider as one of the most patriotic and honest congressman we have ever had in office. Therefore, making the book realistic and most importantly relevant since it was written by a former insider.
Works Cited
Coburn, Tom A, and John Hart. Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders. Nashville: WND Books, 2003. Internet resource.
