Tommy Thompson Lectures Tea Party Rally About Self-Reliance But Got Rich Off Of Taxpayers

[Report1212]

"You guys are on your own, I got mine!"

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But as Thompson attacked the public sector and preached self-reliance, what he didn’t mention was that he personally has made millions of dollars off of taxpayers.
To start with, practically his entire career has been in government. Shortly after completing law school in 1966, he ran for Wisconsin State Assembly. He won, and cycled between a series of government jobs, ranging from Governor of Wisconsin to George W. Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

After leaving Bush’s cabinet, he joined the private sector — sort of. He worked for the powerful lobbying firm Akin Gump, and worked to advise health care corporations and how they could make as much as possible off of the U.S. government. He became president of the health care form Logistics Health Incorporated, and got an $11 million government contract to manage health care for 9/11 first-responders — which his company bungled.


Read more: http://boldprogressives.org/tommy-thompson-lectures-tea-party-rally-about-self-reliance-but-made-millions-off-of-government-contracts/

[Hamlette]

1. Why I hate Tommy Thompson

in the early 1990s my state developed a public assistance program we called SPUD. I don't remember what it stood for. We had to get a waiver from the feds to run the program and it basically gave us the flexibility to provide the services each individual needed instead of one size fits all.

Tommy stole it. Then used his great plan to sell himself all the way to DC.

I didn't work for the agency when our system was designed. I work closely now with the 3-4 people who came up with the ideas, got the waiver, wrote the rules etc. They tell me other states showed interest in our plan and contacted us for info as we had some great successes. Especially Wisconsin which adopted our plan a few years after we implemented it. In the nature of "imitation is the greatest form of flattery" we were pleased other states saw "our" genius.

Then Tommy took all the credit. When I started at the agency they joked about him all the time. There were some hard feelings as Tommy got the press and credit for coming up with a brilliant plan and "saving" welfare. I noticed that in this election he is still claiming it as a success. His success.

[Report1212]

3. Yeah he says this in the debates all the time

That's a really interesting story. I didn't know other people came up with the idea.

[hfojvt]

4. I never considered Thompson's "workfare" to be a great idea

I also considered Thompson goiing to DC to be one of the only good things to come from the selection of George W. Bush. At least it finally got Thompson out of Madison where he otherwise seemed to be "Governor for Life".

[Scuba]

2. Tommy's crowning achievement as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Human Services ...

... was to change of the name of "Health Care Financing Administration" to the “Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services”, thereby eliminating the implication that the government had anything to do with financing health care.

As Governor of Wisconsin he was a corrupt, skirt-chasing, self-promoter without any hint of good character. A lengthy ethics investigation revealed that he had none.

[Report1212]

5. Ha -- I had no idea about that nt