In a letter to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Dr. Coburn signaled his intention to force a recorded vote in the Senate on a proposal to raise the national debt limit.

On the floor, Dr. Coburn said:

The current statutory debt limit is $8.965 trillion.  It was last raised March 20, 2006.  This senator voted against that.  We have been on notice since that time that we needed to make the effort to rein in wasteful Washington spending so that we do not have to, in fact, borrow more money against our children's future ... 

... It is time for things to come to a stop or to markedly change.  This last week the Senate once again failed to make tough decisions about priorities.  We chose to fund pork projects instead of repairing bridges.  We said peace gardens, bike paths, and baseball stadiums are more important than critical infrastructure.  Yesterday a new poll was released.  Rightly so, it reflected less than 11 percent of Americans have confidence in this body. It is no wonder.  Our priorities are wrong.

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