Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
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Posted on 06/26/2007 11:04:12 AM PDT by Politicalmom
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Fred Thompson, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his work as a Washington lobbyist, telling The Associated Press that lobbying is an important part of life because "government's got their hands in everything."
The actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee added, "Nobody yet has pointed out any of my clients that didn't deserve representation."
Thompson, who likes to cast himself as a political outsider, earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government for more than 20 years. He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.
In a brief interview with the AP, Thompson said he expects to hear criticism about his lobbying activities as he moves closer to declaring his candidacy. Opponents emphasized his lobbying work during his Senate races in 1994 and 1996.
"They'll talk about it — probably with the same results," he said.
More than 200 supporters gathered earlier Tuesday at the Nashville airport to greet Thompson. He told the crowd he's "testing the waters" about a run, "but the waters feel pretty warm to me."
Thompson was scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Nashville later in the day.
Thompson declined to give a specific date for an official announcement about a presidential run.
"I have a general time in mind," he said. "You're either running or not running. I think the steps we're taking are pretty obvious."
Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
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I love drive-by's like this. Anyone got the REAL scoop on this?
“He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry’s collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.”
A blatant and gross misrepresentation by the author.
Sounds like a lot, but it's $50,000 a year, a pittance compared to what he can earn as a lawyer or actor.
The REAL scoop on this is that Yahoo News is a leftist outfit that tells whatever lies it thinks will help the Democrats.
Much ado about nothing.
$1,000,000 divided by 20 years equals
$50,000 per year.
Chicken feed by Washington D.C. standards.
Excellent answer, Fred.
Well, I was actually referring more to the issues he was lobbying about, rather than how much he made.
From Powerline:
The AP highlights three issues on which Thompson lobbied over the course of his career. The first is savings and loan deregulation:
One of his clients at the time was the Tennessee Savings and Loan League, on whose behalf Thompson lobbied for a bill to deregulate the industry. Experts say the final version of that bill played a large role in the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, opening the door to widespread fraud and mismanagement.
The fiasco ultimately led to about a $150 billion taxpayer bailout of the industry, said Robert Litan, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and co-author of a 1993 report on the causes of the disaster that describes the influence of lobbyists as “pervasive, pernicious—and effective.”
This is a good example of how controversial (and often false) liberal claims become “fact” over time. The heavily regulated savings and loan industry couldn’t deal with either the spiraling interest rates or the innovative competition it faced beginning in the late 1970s. The industry had to be deregulated, or it was doomed. As it turned out, much of the industry was doomed anyway, and the government made things worse by encouraging risky lending practices, by enacting the Tax Reform of 1986, which rendered many S&Ls insolvent, and through regulatory mismanagement. No matter: the AP, like the Democrats, suggests that having anything to do with the “savings and loan crisis” was disreputable.
The second target is Thompson’s work on behalf of the Clinch River nuclear power plant:
Thompson’s first and longest-running lobbying client was Westinghouse Electric Co., for whom he lobbied in favor of nuclear energy. In 1981, he received a little less than $54,000 from the company. At the time Westinghouse was receiving federal funds for Tennessee’s Clinch River nuclear project.
A spokesman for Thompson, Mark Corallo, said the experimental reactor “was a local project focused on new kinds of energy at a time when the U.S. was going through an energy crisis.”
The reactor was never built and the project was canceled in 1983 after the government had spent $1.7 billion on it.
Clinch River was to be a breeder reactor, a technology which was widely used in Europe at the time, but not in the U.S. I have no idea whether the project had merit or not; it was far from the only nuclear power project that was never completed. Thompson could plausibly claim to have been ahead of his time on nuclear power, but that isn’t how his representation of Westinghouse will be spun.
Does Thompson really cast himself as an outsider? Seems to me it’s more like he says the system is a boondoggle, and he knows it because he has been in it. That isn’t the same as posing as an outsider.
>The Tennesee Warhorse - Ready to Ride<
Yeah, but look who’s gonna ride him!
I think you’re right on the money. Fred himself has never said “I’m an outsider” rather he has indicated he’s been on both sides and has been in it enough to know just how much of a boondoggle it is. However, since he has worked in the private sector too (granted, as a lawyer), he’s got more credibility.
And who is that?
The “outsider” desciption is much like the “another Reagan” narratives in origin. They are straw men puposefully erected by the MSM and his opponents just so they can knock em down.
Good grief, I have lobbyist friends who make that in a year, and they don't lobby in Washington, they lobby at the state level.
I had a sign in my office for years, as did and do many of my friends, "Don't tell my mother I'm a Lobbyist, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse." Contrary to the implication of this article, lobbyist is not synonymous with bad, or evil, or corrupt.
I have told you repeatedly not to post to me.
From now on I push abuse.
My friend is a supporter of Ron Paul. Ron has some good ideas, but seems to be a lost cause. What to do? What to do?
>The Tennesee Warhorse - Ready to Ride<
Yeah, but look who’s gonna ride him!
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