Word: bentsen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Bentsen retired from the House in 1954 to go back home and make money. Starting with a life insurance company capitalized with family funds, he built a corporate empire including apartment buildings, shopping centers, oilfields, banks and a funeral home. Satisfied with his stake, he returned to politics at a higher level. In 1970 he challenged incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough, a liberal folk hero. The primary contest was grimy even by Texas standards, the candidates swapping insults worthy of a saloon brawl. With the backing of Lyndon Johnson, John Connally and the Texas political-financial establishment, Bentsen scored an upset...
Changed Image. When Bentsen arrived in Washington, Vice President Spiro Agnew greeted him as one of the "ideological majority" that would support the Administration. Bentsen quickly set him straight: "I'm coming here as part of the loyal opposition, not as part of the Nixon forces." He proceeded to change his image by voting with the liberals to make it easier to invoke cloture. From then on, Bentsen was tagged as "unpredictable." Filling his office with flow charts, maps and graphs, he established a reputation for probing analysis of complex issues. He took pride in exposing economic illiteracy, whether...
...Senate, Bentsen has concentrated on the economy. A fiscal conservative, he deplored big spending and even objected to revenue sharing as a strain on the federal budget. But during the recession, he has called for Government intervention to counter unemployment. He introduced a bill to create 840,000 summer jobs for unemployed youths and urges a revival of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the New Deal agency that put tens of thousands of young people to work on federal conservation projects around the country. To stimulate the depressed housing industry, Bentsen has proposed giving a 20% tax credit to parents...
Surprise and Chagrin. Convinced that there will soon be a critical shortage of capital, Bentsen has introduced a bill to encourage more investment. The bill provides for a scaling down of the 35% capital gains tax. The longer an asset is held, the less it would be taxed when it is sold. After 15 years, the tax would be trimmed to 14%. The bill also increases from $1,000 to $4,000 the maximum yearly write-off of capital losses...
...reach the middle of the road, Bentsen had to move away from his close identification with his home state's largest industry. To the surprise and chagrin of some of his supporters, he voted for a bill to abolish the depletion allowance for the major oil companies while retaining it for the independents, which do much of the exploratory drilling in the U.S. Bentsen has also called for the creation of a federal bank to guarantee loans to private industry for the development of alternative energy sources. To conserve energy, he has proposed a gasoline tax that starts...