Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Quote of the Day

"If you look historically, every great republic has died over fiscal issues. That is the biggest moral issue of our time." - Senator Tom Coburn

2 comments:

Eumaios said...

I love me some Dr. No, but that's a pretty silly reading of history. Machiavelli would like some words with you, Tom.

TMS said...

I'm not an expert in world history, but I can think of at least a few examples to support Coburn's theory: Weimar Germany, Peronist Argentina, the USSR.

I've heard fiscal policy contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire too, but that's obviously a multi-faceted, complex subject. Also, I think I heard Coburn's theory used to help explain the fall of the Spanish Empire in the early 19th century.

But again, I'm not qualified to decipher fact from fiction in these examples.