— WAGONER — Area residents are making sure Tom Coburn sticks to his message of fiscal conservatism, limited government and institutional transparency.

Coburn, a Muskogee Republican, is holding town meetings across Oklahoma to hear what constituents have to say. He spent Friday visiting Wagoner, Tahlequah, Stilwell and Muskogee.

“Hold me accountable, question me,” he said at the first town meeting, held at the Wagoner Civic Center. “We are certainly at a crossroads, spending $4.1 billion a day we don’t have. The quality we need to embrace can be found in our Founding Fathers, and that’s limited government.”

Many of the 60 or 70 people at the Wagoner meeting echoed Coburn’s concerns and added their comments about illegal immigration, welfare and defense.

“With all the corporations around, if their income is declining, they lay people off. But, except for police and fire, I haven’t heard of the government laying off anyone,” said constituent Dave Adams. Adams also said people seeking welfare should undergo drug tests the same way people seeking a job do.

Coburn quoted a book, “The Tragedy of American Compassion,” which he said “talks about how we used to care for everyone who needs our help.”

Now everyone relies on the government, he said.

“SSDI has been so monkeyed and maneuvered, fully half the people on it are not truly disabled,” Coburn said, referring to the Social Security Disability Insurance program. I want to help people who are fully disabled, but we have created dependency. And I agree on the drug testing.”

Coburn said Social Security has a problem with demographics.

“My generation and the one after us are not having enough kids,” Coburn said, prompting some in the audience to say “amen.”

Comparing Social Security to a Ponzi scheme, Coburn cited three ways to help the program keep going: “Raise the retirement age, raise taxes or allow people to opt out.”

Problems involving illegal immigration are best solved with stronger borders, Coburn said. Some activists have advocated amending the 14th Amendment to keep illegal aliens’ children born in the United States from getting automatic citizenship.

“I don’t think we need to talk about the 14th Amendment, because that’s such a small percentage,” Coburn said. “The problem is not putting resources on the border to secure them.”

Coburn said there has not been a republic survive that has not had strong borders.

He supported residents’ call for a strong defense.

“The Constitution’s first charge was for the defense of our nation,” he said. “But we have a bureaucracy that needs to be broken up.”

Reach Cathy Spaulding at 684-2928 or cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com.