Gang of One: Coburn Writing His Own Budget

Tom Coburn may have left the Gang of Six over unsuccessful attempts to carve out a deficit deal, but he's still in the game. The Oklahoma Republican says he's writing his own budget plan, with a focus on cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. “I want everybody to shoot at it and tell me why it won’t work,” he tells Roll Call. And if the Gang of Six-Minus-One finds a replacement for him, that's fine, too.

“Any way we solve this problem is fine with me,” he says. But “you’ve got to touch Medicare, you’ve got to touch Medicaid. ... It’s a [test] for sanity. Do you think Medicare’s gonna be providing exactly what it’s providing today five years from now? If you think that, I think you need to be evaluated by a psychiatrist." (More Tom Coburn stories.)