Tag: Senator Bob Corker

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Corker Says It’s “Imperative” that Trump Agree to Accept Election Results

CREDIT: JB

JB

Sen. Bob Corker

Tennessee’s U.S. Senator Bob Corker, who has been rumored to be Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of State and was on his short list for vice president, issued what sounded like a veiled ultimatum to Trump after Tuesday night’s third Trump-Clinton debate in Las Vegas.

Trump made headlines in the nationally televised debate by refusing, when asked by moderator Chris Wallace, to say that he would abide by the results of the November 8 election. The New York billionaire, who has made frequent charges that the election is “rigged,” said he would make that decision “at the t
ime.”

Pressed by Wallace to be more definite, Trump said, “I’ll just keep you in suspense.”

Trump’s refusal to pledge acceptance in advance to the voters’ verdict, whatever it might be, caused a negative reaction among TV commentators and focus groups, and brought a host of complaints in press statements by representatives from both parties and in tweets and other online entries from voters at large.

Enter Corker, who responded with equal asperity when news of Trump’s lewd remarks in a 2005 video went public. This time Corker, taking to Twitter, said, bluntly and simply, “It is imperative that Donald Trump clearly state that he will accept the results of the election when complete.”

Corker did not signal whether he would follow up with renunciation of his support of Trump or with some other demonstrative action if Trump failed to respond.

In the judgment of many commentators, Trump’s refusal to embrace the results of the presidential election in advance not only threatened to undermine confidence in the American democratic process itself but, in an immediate sense, had spoiled what many had thought was his best performance so far in a debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

With Clinton far ahead in most polls, prohibitively so in several, Trump was considered to be in dire need of an unblemished success in the debate, and his evasiveness on accepting the election results, coupled with one or two lesser gaffes, may well have buried that hope.

The candidate’s position on the matter was further dramatized by explicit statements from his running mate, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, his daughter Ivanka, his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway that the election results should be heeded, come what may.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Corker, in Memphis, Hints at a Presidential Race in 2016

CREDIT: JB

JB

Steve Bares, Economics Club president; the Senator; and co-hosts for the Corker Q-and-A David Cocke and John Ryder

Tennessee has had its share of presidential candidates – on the Democratic side, there have been names like Kefauver, Clement, Gore; on the Republican side, Baker, Alexander, Thompson.

Now comes another one thinking about it — name of Corker.

The junior U.S. Senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker, has the bug. No doubt about it. Speaking to the Economics Club in Memphis at the East Memphis Hilton Wednesday night, Corker fielded a series of questions ranging across the spectrum of public issues — from the minimum wage to Wikileaks to the chaos of Iraq and the threat of Putin — and finally was asked the key question by John Ryder, a Republican, who shared hosting honors for the affair with Democrat David Cocke.

What were the chances, asked Ryder, that “someone who is fiscally conservative, knowledgeable about foreign affairs, perhaps from the southeast corner of this state” might be able to make a successful run for the presidency?

After a burst of bona fide spontaneous applause for the audience, Corker — recently returned from Southeast Asia and embarked now on a statewide tour — recalled what happened in the Middle Tennessee town of Lawrenceburg on Wednesday morning, when, as he was operating on limited sleep from the night before, “somebody asked that same question, and I gave a stream-of-consciousness answer.”

He undertook to frame a more orderly answer for the Economics Club members.

The Senator, a prominent member of the Senate Banking,Housinhg, and Urban Affairs committee and the ranking Republican member of the Foreign Relations committee, began by sounding a note that was simultaneously modest and ambitious.

“There’s an order of magnitude difference between being a United States
Senator and being president,” he said. It was “an honor to be in the Senate,” he went on, but “If you care deeply about the country and you really want to see something happen, to create change and bring about a vision for Tennesseans and things you want to see for our country…it’s an appealing thing to think about.”

Corker said his wife had never “taken to Washington,” so “that would be a really big hurdle.” And there was another caveat.

“Think about the way I answered questions today,” said the Senator, who indeed had been more than usually forthright.. “That’s exactly the way I’d talk about it on the Senate floor, exactly the way I’d talk about it at a Town Hall meeting. In this polarized world of winning a primary and an election…I don’t know.”

He went on: “It’s something that every Senator has thought about, but I promise you that I’m not one of those Senators that wakes up every day and, while shaving, thinks, ‘I’m looking at the next President,,,,I hope that, on our side of the aisle, there’s a consensus candidate who has an outstanding name recognition around our country and, because of their strength, is able to address the issues in somewhat the same manner that I just did. In an honest way.”

Would he himself rule it out? “No.”

Corker’s take on some of he issue he was asked about:

The Ukraine – “The Russian population is so energized by what Putin is doing that it’s almost a horse that it’s difficult for him to get off, but at the same time, the policies that he’s put in place are going to do long-term damage to Russia…. We’ve waited too long to push him back strongly and again let it go way too far….This could undo 60 years of U.S. policy. There ae real concerns in Eastern Europe and in the NATO alliance. We waited way too long to put tough sanctions in place.”

The Israeli-Palestinian confrontation in Gaza: “I’m hopeful about the new cease fire…I’d love to see a log-term solution. Israel wants to demilitarize Gaza, but I think that’s easier said than done …In the long run, we’ve got to have a two-state solution.”

Iraq: The Senator cited “a petty tough exchange” with President Obama on the eve of his recent foreign trip. He recalled having written the authorization for use of military force in Syria. “The President all of a sudden turned and decided not to pursue it.” That had a lot to do with what happened in Iraq, he said. In Syria, ‘we told them we would support them with arms, but we never did.”

Corker said he had visited refugee camps and was “embarrassed for our country” by the hundreds of thousands Thad had died. The Snowden Case and WikiLeaks: “I care about civil liberties [and] don’t want the government snooping on us, but this was a really big deal….Snowden really hurt us in world relations.” The Germans “couldn’t believe that America was spying on the Chancellor {Angela Merkel]…listening in on her cell phones.” They “found some intelligence operatives that had infiltrated the government….That really soured the Germans on Americans. They expected that from the Chinese and Russia. Not us.”

Tax reform: “The solution [to the incidence of American companies going abroad] is to revamp our tax code….Some of my friends [propose a} Hotel California, where you can check in, but you can never check out. But we need a territorial system where big companies are not moving overseas.”

The Senator noted the importance of rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and cited his proposal for a raising the gasoline Tax “6 cents next year and 6 cents the year after.” That, he said, would “completely pay for our road program” and would be “the most conservative way to raise revenues.” Income taxes could be offset “to make it revenue-neutral.”

Immigration: Corker said the Senate had been able to find 68 votes for a bill after the add-on of an amendment offering “border security on steroids,” but that “the House has just not been willing to take it up. If he House could pass something, we could conference.”

The minimum wage issue: The Senator said he wasn’t sure that raising the minimum wage was the right solution but noted he was “the only Republican in the Senate to vote to proceed to debate” on the issue. It was “perfectly ridiculous that every other senator on our side of the aisle was not willing to debate,” inasmuch as “that would get us into A conversation” on increasing the national standard of living.

On his vigorous (and improper, said his critics) opposition to the UAW’s bid to represent Volkswagen workers at Chattanooga: The Senator said he was well acquainted with CEOs and CFOs”up and down the ladder“in VW’s foreign and domestic operations, and “I thought my job was to understand where the center of gravity was” so as to ensure that “we got this additional announcement” of S.U.V. production at VW’s Chattanooga plant, including a Research and Development operation.

“I don’t want to sound audacious about this, but I just know it. If the election in February [resulting in a narrow defeat for UAW] had turned out any other way, the announcement would not have happened, the expansion would not have occurred, and we would not have had the additional 2000 jobs. But again, the workers voted, they decided, I just happened to stand up as a former mayor, as someone who knew a few things….I’m not a guy that just got off the last turnip truck. I wasn’t doing that without having some incredible insights into where the company was.”

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Editorial Opinion

Corker: Wrong Again

A couple of weeks ago, in the immediate aftermath of a union election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, one in which ranking state officials strained mightily to influence the outcome, we professed dismay, in particular, at the role played by Senator Bob Corker.

If the senator chooses to consult our archives and read our news clips from the 2006 and 2012 elections and our coverage of him in general, it might serve to remind him that we have not been antagonistic toward him, historically. Au contraire, we saw the former Chattanooga mayor more or less as that rare thing in contemporary Republican politics — a moderate who was able to work across the aisle in significant bipartisan ways.  

All the more our disappointment, then, at the senator’s flagrant interference with the process by which workers at the Volkswagen plant were asked to vote up or down on the issue of their representation by the United Auto Workers (UAW).

The senator has just struck again — this time on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), where in a Monday op-ed, Corker maintained that the UAW, which narrowly lost the election and has appealed the result with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), “want[s] critics like me silenced.”

Now, we grant that Corker is taking everything personally, based perhaps on the notion that, as his press releases on the subject invariably conclude, “Much of the negotiation that led to Volkswagen choosing Chattanooga occurred around the dining room table of Corker’s Chattanooga home.”

Fine, and we bet the senator sets a good table, but the fact is that his public statements in advance of the election misrepresented the issues of the union election, and his WSJ op-ed continues to do so. For one thing, there is no mention in the op-ed of the fact that Volkswagen management itself not only didn’t express concern about the UAW, but had indeed seemed to welcome the union as a means of implementing the company’s traditional “worker’s councils” formula.

In the op-ed, Corker says that the UAW “tried to press the narrative that any future expansion of the plant would be contingent upon the UAW organizing the employees.” That stands the facts on their head. It was Corker, not the UAW, who tried to link VW’s expansion with the union vote by insisting publicly that VW would manufacture a mid-sized SUV in Chattanooga if, and only if, the workers rejected the union — a misleading assertion that was vehemently and explicitly denied by VW management and one that is at the heart of UAW’s NLRB complaint.

There are six or seven other blatant omissions or misrepresentations in Corker’s WSJ piece. It would take more space and time than we have at our disposal to address them all. Suffice it to say that if an employer — in this case, Volkswagen — had said and done the things that Corker has, in a union-busting course that has unfortunately been abetted by other state officials, it would be a prima facie violation of NLRB regulations. Just ask any unbiased lawyer conversant with those regulations, labor or management.

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Editorial Opinion

Who’s the Laughingstock?

The argument for “right-to-work” laws, like the one that exists in Tennessee and most other Southern states, is that they function as incentives to attract industry.

The mechanics work this way: In right-to-work states, no worker at a plant where unions are recognized is obliged to join a union. Advocates of right-to-work laws maintain such laws are guarantees of free choice. Opponents of them say they are union-busting measures and allow non-union workers to “freeload” on the employee advantages obtained through union auspices.

A situation now arising involving the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, however, is scrambling all the clichés and talking points and confounding the assumptions of leading Tennessee Republican officeholders that union prerogatives have “job-killing” consequences and impair the state’s efforts to attract industry.

In the case of Volkswagen, the management of the corporate giant has been insisting — in the face of opposition from Governor Bill Haslam and Senator Bob Corker — that the arguments of right-to-work enthusiasts and union-bashers run counter to reality and that strong worker organizations actually constitute a competitive advantage for the corporation. The practice in economically powerful Germany is for corporations to be governed jointly by representatives of management and labor — the latter through union-like groups called “works councils.”

In an interview with Nashville-based Associated Press reporter Erik Schelzig, who is German-born and speaks the language fluently, Bernd Osterloh, head of Volkswagen’s works councils and a member of VW’s supervisory board, said categorically: “Volkswagen considers its corporate culture of works councils a competitive advantage.” Osterloh added, “Volkswagen is led by its board and not by politicians,” and expressed confidence that the board would make “the right decision” in the face of demands by Haslam and Corker that the VW board should void its decision to honor a petition for representation by the United Auto Workers at the Chattanooga plant. The two officials say that, at the very least, Volkswagen should insist on a “secret ballot” vote on union representation by workers at the plant.

Haslam and Corker acknowledge having “concern about the impact of UAW on the state’s ability to recruit other companies to Tennessee,” as a spokesperson for Haslam put it. Corker went so far as to say Volkswagen would be a “laughingstock” if the company permitted a union to operate there. The baffled VW official said, “The decision about [buying] a vehicle will always be made along economic and employment policy lines. It has absolutely nothing to do with … whether there is a union there or not.” He further noted that U.S. law mandates union representation as a prerequisite for allowing the power-sharing function of works councils and pointed out that every other VW plant in the world maintains such councils as a key to its manufacturing strategy.

Though he might have, Osterloh did not go on to note the long-standing fact of existing UAW representation at the General Motors plant at Spring Hill or that Tennessee’s ability to attract industry had somehow not been destroyed by the fact. Nor, and this is surely the clincher, did it keep Volkswagen itself from locating here.

We have to wonder: Just who is the real laughingstock in this argument?

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Corker, Alexander Vote for (Partial) Cloture, Arouse Ire of Gun Group

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Maybe Frank Nicely knows what he’s talking about! Nicely is the state Senator from Strawberry Plains who wants the party caucuses in the General Assembly to do the nominating for U.S. Senator, not the voters, and says that in such a case Tennessee’s two U.S. Senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, are likely too moderate to be renominated by the state’s Republican legislators.

Nicely would probably get some agreement from an outfit called Conservative-Daily.com, which, in the “daily sanity”newsletter it distributes to its network, takes dead aim at Alexander, Corker, and 14 other Republican senators with the vow, “We Will Not Rest Until They Are Removed.”

What prompted this threat was a 68-31 vote in the Senate on Thursday in which partial cloture was imposed on a would-be filibuster against S. 49, the Obama administration’s bill to mandate background checks for all gun sales. The vote, according to a spokesperson for Corker, was “to allow the bill to be considered, debated, and amended. There will be another vote on a cloture motion to move to final passage….”

Whatever the technical thrust of the outcome, Tennessee’s Senatorial duo were in the GOP minority that voted with the Democratic majority to permit procedural votes. The total needed to impose cloture was 60 votes.

The proprietors of Conservative-Daily.com were clearly not amused. Their signed spokesman, identified as Tony Watkins, went on to say: “We have lost the first battle….But we have NOT lost the war….The filibuster, that we supported, was voted down thanks to the ‘turncoat’ Republicans who voted against the filibuster. The NRA is taking note. We are taking note of these soft Republicans. We are calling OUT the Republicans who voted against the filibuster.”

After listing the 16 Republican senators who voted for cloture, “daily sanity” goes on to say, “We will vote you out of office!”

After that,Watkins’ philippic gets a little less agitated, if no less resolved, and it segues into an appeal: “We are tired of supposed Republicans voting against our Second Amendment rights! However, there is still a strong opportunity for the final vote to VOTE NO on S. 649!! That is why your fax is extremely VITAL to SAVE our Second Amendment rights from the United States Constitution!”

The newsletter asks readers to contact their members of Congress for one last heroic effort: “Fax Congress NOW! The debate is already in progress. But it could last into next week before a FINAL VOTE! When it comes to cutting down our Second Amendment…this is it! The Second Amendment, as written by our founding fathers, literally guarantees Americans the right to own and bear arms, guns. But, unless we fax NOW, that time is gone!”

Meanwhile, Corker released a statement displaying some flexibility in his position: “I don’t understand why any senator wouldn’t want to debate these issues, but in the end, I will not support any legislation that violates our Second Amendment rights.’

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Opinion Viewpoint

Fiscal Notes

Cumulative figures from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) indicate the problem: While tax receipts have steadily increased from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to an estimated $2.4 trillion in 2012, governmental outlays have, just as steadily, gone from $1.8 trillion to $3.7 trillion. The net has gone from a surplus of $138 billion to a deficit of $1.3 trillion.

In the 1970s, the national debt, as a percent of GDP, remained fairly constant at about 22 percent. Today, the national debt is more than 100 percent GDP. The total debt is more than $16 trillion; the GDP for 2011 was slightly less than $15 trillion.

As a nation, we are overdrawn at the bank and maxed out on our credit cards. Failure to deal with the situation will lead us to the scenes we have seen in Greece, Spain, and Stockton, California.

The first part of the solution is to cut spending. Entitlements take about 62 percent of federal spending. Any meaningful curbs on spending involve entitlement spending. Entitlement reforms are not that difficult to imagine: Means testing of benefits and phasing in an increase in the retirement age are two simple solutions. Senator Bob Corker’s Fiscal Reform Act of 2012 envisions just such reforms.

Cuts in discretionary spending have to be real and have to be meaningful. That means that they cannot be “Washington” cuts — mere decreases in the rate of growth of spending — but have to be real cuts: decreases from the prior year’s expenditures.

The next step deals with taxes, and this is more difficult, because the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues is not as clear as the relationship between spending and deficits.

As is evident from the OMB’s figures, receipts have more to do with the overall economy than with tax rates. Furthermore, an increase in rates further distorts an already too progressive tax system.

The premise of progressive taxation is that those who make more should pay more. But progressive tax rates don’t just require those who make more to pay more but to pay disproportionately more. If there were one rate of 10 percent, the citizen who makes 10 times that would pay 10 times as much. In a progressive rate structure, the taxpayer making 10 times as much pays 12 or 15 times as much. Or, if some had their way, 20 or 30 times as much.

The moral justification for this is little different from that of an armed robber. The armed robber takes your money, because he has a gun and you don’t, and you have money and he doesn’t. Progressive taxers take your money, because they have the votes and you don’t.

In addition, progressive taxation makes it harder for people to move up the economic ladder — it robs families of opportunity. It works like a stress test at the physician’s office. As you run faster, the nurse keeps increasing the incline on the treadmill until you can’t move.

As a practical matter, raising rates doesn’t work. Raising tax rates will increase revenues only if everyone’s economic behavior stays the same after the rates have been raised. Unfortunately for proponents of this theory, Americans are not stupid. If rates are raised on income, those with high incomes will find ways to avoid characterizing their receipts as income — through deductions, through retirement, through forgoing income altogether.

Senator Bob Corker

Consider the two-income family: The second income takes a toll on the family in terms of time, there are expenses associated with that second income, and the second income is taxed at the higher marginal rates applicable to that family. If you increase the tax on the second income, it will, for some, be a rational choice to forgo that income.

A better approach is to cap deductions, again as proposed in Corker’s bill. This has the effect of producing more revenue according to Congressional Budget Office estimates and the virtue of making the system flatter. A flatter tax is a fairer tax.

There is a way to avoid the fiscal cliff, but the cliff has been created by spending. Making a progressive tax system more progressive is neither a practical nor a moral solution.

John Ryder, a Memphis bankruptcy lawyer, is a Republican national committeeman for Tennessee.