Lamar Alexander
Posted on 11/06/2011 3:20:06 PM PST by Hojczyk
The debate over spending among Republicans in Congress has become so intense that one Senate Republican leader has started wearing a flak jacket to meetings.
The arguments have gotten so pointed that Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) wore a flak jacket to a Republican lunch meeting a few weeks ago.
He said he would don the protective gear after Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), an outspoken conservative, blasted him in a meeting for arguing that Congress had already made substantial reductions in discretionary spending.
Coburn objected heatedly. He argued that slowing the rate of discretionary spending growth is not the same as cutting spending, according to sources. Senate aides say that conservatives including Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) agree with Coburn’s point of view.
“If we’re serious about it, we have to change the way we talk about things in D.C.,” said a Senate Republican aide who supports Coburn’s argument. “We can’t talk about cuts but they’re not cuts, they’re slowing of growth. It’s slowing the amount of gas we’re pouring on the fire.”
The group of conservatives backing Coburn, which includes members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus, wants deeper cuts to discretionary spending in addition to entitlement reforms.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) “
What is wrong with Tennessee?
Al Gore was elected Senator from TN.
Fred Thompson, former head of Senate Centrist Coalition, and advocate for all sort of bipartisan liberal BS (including free speech limitations) was also from TN.
Isn’t there any conservatives in TN???
Lamar Alexander has always been a liberal piece of stinking turd. He’s a “yes” vote on tax hikes, just waiting to happen.
Is there any possibility the decent people in his state will flush his sorry ass down the toilet?
Coburn is exactly right. Why is Lamar even there, much less as a “leader”??
Lamar! needs to be voted out, fellow Tennesseans.
Several years ago, Newsweak did a profile article on political "types". The charismatic types (their example: Pat Buchanan, Jesse Jackson) were one type, the "members of the club" (Bob Dole, Gerry Ford) were another, and the third was the "mandarin" type (examples: Bill Clinton, Lamar Alexander).
Newsweek's point, such as it was, was that life experiences predispose politicians' POV's to converge. The formative experiences and educations of Bill and Hillary have been almost identical to those of Al Gore and Lamar Alexander. They all went to elite schools, were "born to rule" (privilege academies and societies since grade school) -- remember, Bill Clinton was scouted by an elite boys' club, Boys' State, and then interned with Sen. Bill Fulbright -- followed by never holding an honest job in their lives, but constantly being catered to from the Ruling Class party tray); and they have similar overblown estimates of themselves (rotten to the core) because they've been told all their lives how special they are, how great they are -- and encouraged to look down on "ordinary" people as political "muggles", people without a hope or a clue, a resource to be exploited by the Ruling Class.
The burden of Newsweek's article that I took away was that mandarin sympathizers in journoland could take heart from the fact (this was in the 90's) that numbers of Republican politicians were "mandarins" like Bill and Hillary and could be counted on to "rise above" the "muggles" in the interest of, well, mandarinism, to support and carry forward progressive policies that did not look back to the cramped and benighted constitutionalism of the Founders, but ahead to the sunny uplands of whatever Oceania will become.
Well, you know those "Tea Party types" are just so extrEEEEEEEme, I just don't know what we'll do!"
Visual sarcasm from a made-in-life, senator-for-life Permanent Ruling Class magnate.
He has the money
Coburn’s totally correct.
I voted for Ron Johnson, great guy. Glad he’s right there with Coburn.
When you run a business and your own money’s on the line for buying materials and sellign your products, you get an appreciation that you just can’t assume increases in your spending every subsequent year.
It’s the same mentality behind “Real Estate Always Goes Up.” Fannie and Freddie idiots had this mentality.
Ding, Ding, Ding! Bingo!! We have a Winner!!!
But Lamar is still an uber RINO!
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