Lamar Alexander has had a partially distinguished
political career and now at age 73 will run in 2014 for his third 6-year term
as U.S. Senator from Tennessee.
As most of our posters, Alexander has spent nearly all of his
years in politics, starting as his high school class president. He earned
his law degree in 1956 and then clerked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1967 he became
legislative assistant for Senator Howard Baker then returned to Tennessee as
campaign manager for Winfield Dunn running for Governor. After that campaign he
joined a law firm in Nashville. When Dunn was term-limited out Alexander ran
but lost the race to Roy a former congressman. He next returned to
Washington to again work for Howard Baker who was then the Senate Minority
Leader. Gov. Blanton didn't run again – he had some scandal
issues - and Alexander ran for governor and won taking office in 1979. He won a
second term and was term-limited out in 1987.
By all accounts he was a good governor. One accomplishment was to
attract Japanese auto makers to the State. Another was his “Better
Schools” program that stressed math, science and computer education. The plan
called for income supplements for top teachers but it was watered down by the
teachers unions. After a period in Australia with his family, he came back to
become president of the University of Tennessee from 1988-91. He was selected
in 1991 by president Bush to become Secretary of Education until 1994. So
far, so good.
How do politicians who spend their lives
on government payrolls get to be very, very rich? Former Department of
Education employee and writer Lisa Schiffren writes,
"[Alexander’s] fortune is founded on sweetheart deals not available to the
general public, and on a series of cozy sinecures provided by
local businessmen. Such deals are not illegal..." In 1987, Alexander
helped found Bright Horizons Family Solutions now
the nation's largest provider of work site day care. While
businessman Jack
C. Massey spent $2 million on this enterprise, Alexander
co-founded the company with only $5,000 of stock which increased in value to
$800,000, a 15,900 percent return within four years. In 2005 he reported on his
U.S. Senate disclosure form that the stock was then worth between $1 and $5
million. Also in 1987, he a wrote a never-cashed investment check for
$10,000 to Christopher
Whittle for shares in Whittle Communications that increased in
value to $330,000. In 1991, Alexander bought a house for $570,000 and sold it
to Whittle for $977,500. Alexander's wife made $133,000 profit from her $8,900
investment in a company created to privatize prisons. [This early history was taken from Wikipedia]
Alexander ran for president twice
but didn't get very far, complaining that the system was stymied by
the media and big money. Then, he ran for the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by
Fred Thompson which he won with media recognition and a big money advantage
over his conservative opponent. Of course.
As with all Posters, Alexander has been a
serious contributor to the $17 trillion--and growing--debt being piled on our
children and grandchildren. He recently voted for the Senate “farm bill”
costing $955 billion, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office. It funded
48 million people on food stamps plus providing subsidies for wealthy large
agribusinesses that pay the pols, usually through lobbyists, to vote for their
benefits. It’s politely called crony capitalism. He also votes to increase the debt ceiling – if you keep voting for
increased spending while stifling the economy with counter-productive
regulations, high taxes and limitations on drilling our own oil, then the
economy can’t grow to generate revenues to cover the spending. Career
pols continue to calculate that by the time the debt hits as in Greece, they’ll
be gone. It seems to be their policy to spend now for what they want/need
now for reelection and stiff the coming generations.
He voted for a tax
on internet sales, even purchases from companies not located in the
municipality, county or state. What possible justification exists for a
state to tax an out-of-state entity that has no presence in that jurisdiction
and gets no services from it? Career pols simply want the money;
no justification needed. By the way, that bill would overturn a Supreme
Court decision limiting a state’s ability to require out-of-state retailers to
collect sales taxes for nearly 10,000 separate state, local and municipal tax
jurisdictions.
Alexander was one of nine out of 40
Republican senators who voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor who thinks that better judicial decisions can be made
by a judge based upon her race, gender, and culture. He also voted for
other conflict-of-interest burdened Obama appointments like Thomas Perez
for Secretary of Labor who has demonstrated that he does not believe in the
equal application of the laws. His action in labor cases leave little doubt as
to how he will run the Department of Labor. Perez filed an anti-religious
liberty brief in a Supreme Court case arguing against the ability of churches
to hire individuals they choose. He has also threatened local swimming pools
with fines if they do not install mechanical lift chairs and opposed removing
ineligible voters from the voting rolls. And, to mention just one more extreme
Obama choice, Alexander was one of 8 Republicans to cross the aisle and
vote for confirmation of Harold Hongju Koh as Legal Adviser to the
State Department. He favors international courts having jurisdiction in
the US citing specifically "the global regulation of small arms"
–elimination of our Second Amendment rights and other distinctly un-American
concepts. Does Sen. Alexander hold those views or does he just go along to get
along with the powers-that-be?
You get the idea why we would have liked to have seen Sen.
Alexander term-limited years ago. But his latest gambit should be the clincher.
I’m referring to his insult of great American heroes. Recently, ridiculing Sen. Ted Cruz for his principled stand against
the imposition of ObamaCare and comparing him to Davey Crockett who
stood on principle at the Alamo along with thirty-one other Tennessee heroes.
That’s what a lifetime in Washington does to career pols; eventually they lose
the principles once held. A foreign concept to them is this,
from the Declaration of Independence: “…we mutually pledge to each other our
Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor..”.
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