Bump! Go Fred Go!
PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL.... for sure!
Posted on 09/06/2007 7:15:29 AM PDT by Ogie Oglethorpe
Washington - Today, the Club for Growth released its presidential white paper on Republican presidential candidate former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (see PDF). The sixth in a series of white papers on the pro-growth records of presidential candidates, the attached report provides an extensive summary of Fred Thompson's economic policies during his eight years in the U.S. Senate.
"Fred Thompson's eight-year record is generally pro-growth with an excellent record on entitlement reform and school choice and a very good record on taxes, regulation, and trade," said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. "His belief in a limited federal government is demonstrated by his numerous votes against government intrusion in the private sector and increased federal spending. His fondness for Tennessee pork aside, Thompson consistently voted against increased spending and new government projects, at times, one of only a handful of senators to do so."
The white paper provides an in-depth look at Thompson's strengths and weaknesses, giving the Senator credit for supporting the flat tax and for sponsoring legislation for Social Security personal accounts at a time when few would touch the issue. At the same time, the white paper explores Thompson's enigmatic record on tort reform and takes the southern Senator to task for his instrumental support of McCain-Feingold, questioning why his belief in limited government doesn't extend to government's regulation of political speech.
"Given his recent doubts about McCain-Feingold, Senator Thompson will have to clarify his current position on political speech," Mr. Toomey continued, "and explain how he would deal with our expensive tort system given his philosophical opposition to comprehensive tort reform. That said, Fred Thompson's overall record contains the hallmarks of a pro-growth economic conservative."
Enjoy gnats! Fire away...
P.S. - full pdf of white paper available at link on top
A strong endorsement... they are a very thorough and quality organization.
ping-a-ling...
Good commendations for Fred.
Bump! Go Fred Go!
PRESIDENTIAL MATERIAL.... for sure!
I would barely count the organization’s endorsement as a positive.
Mmmm! Nothing wrong with that. I love that Tennessee barbecue too.
Political Free Speech
Maximizing prosperity requires sound government policies. When the government strays from these policies, citizens must be free to exercise their constitutional rights to petition and criticize those policies and the politicians responsible for them.
Regrettably, Thompson's admirable record in so many areas is marred by his failure in the area of protecting free speech. Though Senators McCain and Feingold are more often associated with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, Thompson was the next senator to sign on to the bill and was instrumental in achieving its passage. Though he acknowledged "the First Amendment right of people to give money to candidates," Thompson had no problem running roughshod over the right of groups to air their political views in his pursuit of the impossible goal of removing money from politics.
To make matters worse, early in his career, Thompson voted for a bill that provided federal candidates with taxpayer subsidies for campaign spending, in exchange for voluntary campaign spending limits.
Since announcing his presidential aspirations, Senator Thompson has admitted that McCain-Feingold has become riddled with loopholes and has distanced himself from his previous support, saying, "I'm not prepared to go there yet, but I wonder if we shouldn't just take off the limits and have full disclosure with harsh penalties for not reporting everything on the Internet immediately."
More recently, when Sean Hannity asked Thompson if backing McCain-Feingold was the "right decision in retrospect," Thompson replied: "Part of it was, and part of it wasn't." He elaborated, supporting repealing a ban on issue advocacy ads because "that's not working," but continued to support limitations on individual contributions.
While Thompson's recent pangs of doubt are somewhat encouraging, his doubts are not motivated by a strong First Amendment philosophy, but the realization that McCain Feingold isn't working. One has to wonder if this erstwhile supporter of McCain-Feingold has truly learned his lesson, or would he impose even harsher restrictions on political free speech to rein in the aforementioned "loopholes?"
Are they going to do a paper on Hunter? I noticed their paper on Brownback was very positive. They were not nearly so positive about Huckabee.
Here is one of CFG’s papers on Hunter:
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2006/10/duncan_hunters_voting_record.php
..you may also find the Congressional scorecard interesting.
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2006/07/the_2005_congressional_scoreca_2.php
I’m not sure this is completely fair to Hunter because a lot of the spending bills they score him down on were military spending bills. The Club for Growth has an across the board, lower taxes, lower spending, free trade, free market attitude, and, for example, if you propose increasing spending in a vital area, like military, it is still marked as a spending increase.
On the other hand, I still have found them more even handed than most other sites out there in rating candidates on the issues that they center around. You just have to learn to verify the details behind the surface ratings instead of blindly follow.
I don’t know, but if they do I would not expect it to be very strong on economic/pork issues.
I was really surprised about Huckabee and how weak he is on growth issues. The CFG white paper on him was a real eye-opener.
But he’s a member of CFR! [sarc]
The paper on Hunter might not be all that positive. This club likes their free trade pure with no concessions to the ugly facts of the real world. Our children need all the cheap Chinese toys they can get.
They are actually tougher on Hunter on his spending, but you do have another good point. The Club for Growth is about completely free, unregulated trade, so voting for any government interference in that would dock one down... They are pretty far to the right on all economic issues.
Thank you for the links and the information about their scoring.
And I forgot to thank you also for putting this up. It’s useful in the main, but on some issues like total free trade and immigration, I often disagree with those in that camp.
I guess they don’t see immigration as falling into the big 3 items they are about, Taxes, Trade, & Spending.
I wouldn’t read into that that they support amnesty, nor would I read into that that they support completely closed borders. It is just a blank slate item they don’t seem to rate people on.. I guess it is like the NRA dealing with abortion, it just isn’t their issue.
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