Last month’s election was unquestionably a good day for the right, but tenther Senate candidates — those who believe that pretty much everything the federal government does is unconstitutional — massively underperformed. As it turns out, even November’s disgruntled electorate wasn’t interested in radical tenthers like Sharron Angle (R-NV) or Ken Buck (R-CO) who think that Pell Grants, student loan assistance and other federal support for education somehow violates the Constitution. Yet, despite the thumping delivered to the right’s tenther wing last month, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is apparently eager to pick up where Angle and Buck left off. In an interview with right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham, Coburn endorses the radical view that federal education programs violate the Constitution:

I don’t even think [education] is a role for the federal government, if you read the Constitution. Matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson said “I believe in the federal government having a role for education but the only way you can do that is change the Constitution.” That’s a direct quote from him. In other words, he recognized that it wasn’t in the Constitution for the federal government to have a role in education. And now we have more debt for student loans than we have credit card debt in this country.

Listen:

Sen. Coburn might want to try actually read the Constitution before he pretends to know what it allows. Article I provides that “[t]he Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” a grant of power that unambiguously empowers Congress to raise funds and spend them on programs that are broadly beneficial to American welfare — such as education.

Moreover, while Coburn’s reference to Thomas Jefferson is true in the narrowest sense of the term, it also betrays Coburn’s ignorance of constitutional history. During the Washington Administration, Jefferson and James Madison led a minority coalition which believed that Congress’ constitutional power to spend money was too narrow to support spending programs such as the First Bank of the United States. President Washington, however, rejected their arguments. Moreover, while Coburn is correct that President Jefferson briefly referenced his narrow view of the Constitution in his 1806 State of the Union, Jefferson was an extreme outlier by this point in American history. Even Madison parted ways with Jefferson by the time Madison became president in 1809.

Nor is Coburn’s command of basic economics any better than his grasp on the Constitution and its history. Coburn is right to be upset that “debt for student loans” has skyrocketed in recent years, but his prescription for addressing this problem — eliminating Pell Grants and low-interest government loans — would obviously make the problem even worse.

After relentlessly pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts on everyone including top income earners, Republicans finally won a temporary victory yesterday when President Obama agreed to extend the cuts for two years in exchange for a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, something that was uncontroversial in prior congresses. This was not enough to satisfy some of the more hardcore Republican lawmakers and interest groups. “Ensuring that people don’t receive a tax increase for the next two years is vitally important, but ultimately that’s not enough confidence, that’s not enough certainty,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), a leading House Republican.

The conservative Club for Growth, too, rejects the deal because it didn’t make both the Bush tax cuts and the estate tax repeal permanent. Their plan: “Instead, Congress should pass a permanent extension of current rates, including a permanent repeal of the death tax, and drop all new spending.” The only “new spending” included in the plan, of course, is a desperately needed extension of lapsed unemployment benefits that will ultimately help at least 7 million jobless Americans and prevent the loss of another 600,000 jobs next year. The Heritage Foundation also opposes the plan and wants the tax cuts to be permanent: “By allowing for only a two-year extension of current tax rates, the President’s agreement provides no long-term certainty that is essential for economic recovery. Heritage, too, denounced the inclusion of jobless benefits, calling them a “permanent entitlement” while repeating the canard that they will discourage the unemployed from seeking work at a time when unemployment is at 9.8% and there are five job seekers for every one available job.

The Bush tax cuts, of course, are not paid for, and will add $120 billion to the deficit over the next two years. Republicans seem fine with that, but many also oppose the compromise because of extending unemployment insurance for 13 months, which will cost half as much.

“We cannot add on something like a year of unemployment benefits.” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

“If we’re going to extend the unemployment insurance beyond its normal level, let’s at least pay for it and get this nation off its ruinous spending path.” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) — the de facto leader of the Senate GOP and a past opponent of jobless aid — told National Review shortly before the deal was struck that the inclusion of unemployment benefits could influence his position. “The question [for Republicans] is: At what price are you buying?” he said.

“I would definitely look at how they were going to cover the expense of extending the unemployment [insurance]…. I firmly believe we need to live within our means.” Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.)

Arkansas GOP Rep.-elect Steve Womack said “There’s a limit to just how much this country can afford,” and went on to say that enough was enough when it comes to jobless benefits.

These Republicans have made it clear that deficit spending is unacceptable — unless, of course, it provides completely permanent tax cuts to wealthy — and are doubling down on the least stimulative elements, while denying jobless and working Americans relief that will actually help our economy dig out of the deep hole we’re in.

On November 10, President Obama addressed a crowd at the University of Indonesia about a “shared humanity” in the face the deep tension between the U.S. and Muslim communities. “In an age of rapid change and colliding cultures, what we share as human beings can sometimes be lost,” he said. “But I believe that the history of both America and Indonesia should give us hope. It is a story written into our national mottos. In the United States, our motto is E pluribus unum — out of many, one. Bhinneka Tunggal Ika — unity in diversity…our nations show that hundreds of millions who hold different beliefs can be united in freedom under one flag.”

More than shared humanity or diversity, the big takeaway from this speech for the Congressional Prayer Caucus was Obama’s choice of motto. Yesterday, in a letter obtained by Minnesota Independent, 41 Republicans — including Reps. Michele Bachmann (MN) and Mike Pence (IN) — and lone Democrat Mike McIntyre (NC) took to their bully pulpit to lambast Obama for forsaking the official U.S. motto “In God We Trust” in favor of E pluribus unum. Finding a “pattern” of subversive omittances among Obama’s speeches, the outraged lawmakers slammed Obama’s “disservice to the people you represent” and demanded Obama “issue a correction” to his speech:

E pluribus unum is not our national motto.[...]

As President of the United States, you are our representative to the rest of the world. By misrepresenting things as foundational as the Declaration of Independence and our national motto, you are not only doing a disservice to the people you represent you are casting aside an integral part of American society.

John Adams said, “It is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.” If Adams was right, by making these kinds of statements to the rest of the world, you are removing one of the cornerstones of our secure freedom. If we pull the threat of religious conviction out of the marketplace of ideas, we unravel the tapestry of freedom that birthed America.[...]

We respectively request that you issue a correction to the speech you gave, as it does not accurately reflect America and serve to undercut an important part of our history. We are willing to meet with you to discuss this further if you would like. As President Ronald Reagan warned, “if we ever forgot that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

To bolster their own view, these lawmakers blatantly ignore Obama’s repeated references to God in his speeches. In fact, they pointedly ignore his multiple references to God in the very same Indonesia speech in which Obama shows no sign of trying to avoid the subject.

In blasting his choice of U.S. motto, these lawmakers also insinuate that the motto E pluribus unum “does not accurately reflect America.” But while “In God We Trust” has been the nation’s official motto since 1956, E pluribus unum, or “out of many, one,” is the motto on the Seal of the United States and was the nation’s original “de facto motto” until 1956. Ironically, John Adams — a founding father who signed his name to the idea that the U.S. “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” — suggested E pluribus unum as the young nation’s motto in 1776.

In fact, only when “the nation was suffering through the height of the cold war, and the McCarthy communist witch hunt” did Congress, desiring to differentiate between communism and Western capitalistic democracies, replace that motto with “In God we Trust.” And while some among the Congressional Prayer Caucus have no problem with Senator Joe McCarthy’s methods, most try to avoid the comparison.

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