Bill Haslam Quotes
Almost every business is regulated by the state. So if you're going to say, 'If you own any business, you shouldn't run for public office,' I don't think that's what we want.
Sisk, Chas. "Haslam defends ethics of owning business." The Tennessean, 11 Jan. 2011.
His sentiments after he began serving his jail sentence for conflict of interest.
Wisconsin had a particularly tough lobbying law which was to be administered by the secretary of state, who found himself in the embarrassing position of discovering that he, himself, had technically violated the law by sending a signed, political mailing to a lobbyist. He turned himself in, and paid a $50 fine.
Mises is one of the very few economic conservatives who opposed companies getting involved with lobbying or politics in any way. He, like some others, saw the negative public effect that business produces when it does get deeply involved in politics, but he uniquely observed that the businesses themselves suffered as a result of the involvement in politics. Obviously very few business leaders of the 21st century agreed with Mises’ earlier views.
At the time this was a very widely held, bipartisan view. See {634818} . Given statements like this, TR if he were alive today would never be able to get the Republican Nomination for President; nor could he obtain the Democratic Nomination because of his view on the military, expansionism, defense spending and war.
His unusual theory was that if government could or did not do much to affect the economy, there would be no reason for a large corporation to invest money in electing a particular party or candidate. Therefore the way to get the influence of big money out of politics is to reduce the role of government drastically. Paul was one of the very few Conservative politicians who would publicly state that the reasons that corporations made campaign contributions was to buy political favors, favorable legislation or tax treatment. If corporate investments did not pay off for the company, shareholders would not tolerate spending investment money for a particular political philosophy as most companies have shareholders representing the range of American political opinion and their investments should pay off to the bottom line—profits.
That particular Libertarian platform called for the abolition / repeal of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, Federal election Commission and campaign finance laws. Extreme radical ideas such as this are not typical of Libertarian Party positions before or afterwards. The quotation illustrates that there are people in America who would end public education if they could. The quotation also illustrates how a small cadre of people can capture control of a political party and create a platform that is their own personal views which may be different from most of the party members or the historical position that the party has taken. In 1980 the Libertarian Party Vice Presidential Candidate was David Koch, one half of the billionaire conservative Koch brothers. Their money financed the Libertarian Party in that year and David Koch’s views then prevailed in the party platform. Historically, the Koch brothers moved from a minor third party to the Republican party at the beginning of the 21st century when their money was able to help drive the party very far to the right from the traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
William Edward Haslam is an American businessman and politician who served as the 49th governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Haslam previously served as the 67th mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee.
