By Clinton B Confehr
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper of Nashville visited The Tennessee Tribune Building Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014, for a news interview with Clint Confehr, a reporter/writer/photographer whose stories and pictures are published in the Tribune as early as 1999. The two men first met in Estill Springs in autumn 1982 when Cooper was winning his campaign to succeed Al Gore, who that year was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Cooper began his first term in the House by serving the 5th District. It includes Shelbyville where his father, former Gov. Prentice Cooper, who later served as ambassador to Peru, and mother, Hortense, raised him. In 1994, Jim Cooper was in his sixth term in the House and was campaigning to succeed Sen. Al Gore who stepped up as President Bill Clinton’s vice president. Fred Thompson succeeded Gore in the Senate and served only one term.
During Clinton’s presidency, America’s economy was robust. Cooper moved to Nashville, resumed his law practice, engaged in other private business work, and started teaching at Vanderbilt University. He teaches health care policy now.
When Nashville’s congressman, Bob Clement, decided to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Thompson in 2002, there was an opening in Tennessee’s 5th District and another Democrat was elected. As a result, Cooper is effectively running for a 13th term in the House. During his discussion at the Tribune Building, Cooper said 24 years in the House have served him well, giving him experience and insights. His law degree is from Harvard, like the degree held by President Barack Obama. Cooper won a Rhodes scholarship, like President Bill Clinton, and Cooper studied politics and economic at Oxford. His bachelor’s degree is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied history and economics.
He met his wife, Martha, at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., where she was working as an ornithologist. Since the couple has raised three children, her closest experience to ornithology lately has been, the congressman said, “empty nest syndrome.” Their youngest is in college.
On the Thursday afternoon of the interview, Jim left Martha at the Social Security office to get a document. She waited in line.
Cooper recently issued a press release saying he’s co-sponsoring two bills to help musicians and songwriters get paid. The Songwriter Equity Act would change two provisions of the Copyright Act because they now prevent songwriters from getting fair market value for use of their music. The Respect Act would require digital radio services, including Sirius XM and Pandora, to pay royalties to artists who made music before Feb. 15, 1972.
Neither bill has been enacted and that’s where the interview began.
“This Congress has been the laziest Congress in history. These should be nonpartisan issues, because songwriters are creative regardless of political party. But Congress has had trouble addressing anything regardless of the issue.
“We haven’t passed a transportation bill that means anything in about seven years.”
ROAD BILLS ARE TO BE PASSED EVERY FIVE YEARS.
“We just passed an eight-month extension on the two-year extension, and the Tennessee commissioner of highways called both of those jokes. That’s how silly they are, because you can’t let any contracts or build any roads in eight months or in two years. It’s got to be a five-year bill. It’s been about seven years since we’ve enacted a real highway bill. That’s another thing that should be bipartisan because Democrats and Republicans and Independents all want good roads.
“We all hate traffic, but Congress has been unable to respond.
“Another issue we’re gridlocked on is immigration. The Senate passed an overwhelmingly popular immigration bill last year 68-32; all the Democrats and plenty of Republicans. We’ve not even been allowed to vote on it in the House… It’s rare to get 68 votes in this Senate on anything. [Sens. Bob] Corker and [Lamar] Alexander voted for it. And we’re not allowed to vote on it [in the House] because of [House Speaker] John Boehner and the Republican majority.
“So we have a dysfunctional country right now because of this Republican intransigence. One of their main motivators is hatred for the president.”
IS IT RACISM OR BECAUSE OBAMA’S A DEMOCRAT?
“It’s a combination of things. There are examples in Tennessee when people overcome racism, like the long-time county mayor in Bedford County is Eugene Ray who’s an African American, but he’s known people there his whole life. Everyone there knows him and trusts him. He’s overwhelmingly re-elected there.”
BY 2-1 IN AUGUST.
“But what you usually see is codeword racism… We saw that early on with claims that he [Obama] was born in Kenya and therefore would be an illegitimate American president.
“And, by the way, that lawsuit that was just decided yesterday by the 6th Circuit [Court of Appeals in Cincinnati] they threw it out as a groundless lawsuit — [a complaint] claiming that the president should not be allowed to be president
“That was the first big lie that was told.
“There have been others. One, the recurring one, is that the president is a Muslim and the president is not a Muslim. It’s true that his father was, but the president is not. His father was born in Kenya. The president was born in Hawaii and the president’s not a Muslim.
“Those rumors are hard to stop. The first is a delegitimizing rumor.
“For example, there was one presidential candidate in 2008 who was not born in the United States. It was… John McCain who was born in the Canal Zone. Democrats didn’t make that an issue because his parents were in the [military] service and the Canal Zone was then a U.S. protectorate… The Constitution doesn’t make an exception. It says you have to be born in the United States, not some naval base overseas.
“Then his opponent in 2012 was Mitt Romney. Well, it’s very interesting about Mitt Romney, because his father George Romney had run for president [in the Republican primary.] Guess where George Romney was born?”
MEXICO.
“Here we are six years into [Obama’s] presidency… [and] he’s won greater majorities than any president of modern times. Bill Clinton never got a majority. [Obama won] better majorities since president [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, so that’s pretty amazing.
“The president is not treated with that same level of respect.
“There’s no requirement that the president be a Christian and Thomas Jefferson was sworn in one time with a copy of the Koran, that’s now held by the Library of Congress.
“Anything he does, they’re going to challenge and it’s a challenge that no other president has faced.”
YOU WROTE THE NO BUDGET, NO PAY BILL DURING THE BUDGET CRISIS.
Cooper acknowledged his bill became law — to stop paying congressmen if they didn’t pass a budget — but it was amended.
“They made it one year only, instead of permanent, and having one year is better than nothing.”
IS THAT THE ONLY CHANGE?
“They also made it so that just the House could pass a budget and just the Senate, but [that] we didn’t have to have a congressional budget [to get paid.] My bill said we had to have a congressional budget… America doesn’t have a budget… if they don’t match.”
HOUSE AND SENATE BILLS MUST MATCH THROUGH THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE SYSTEM.
“The Republicans hate conference committees. They never want to agree with the Senate. We’ve had fewer conference committees than any Congress in modern times. They show real disrespect for the Senate. House Republicans will say they have sent the Senate 300 bills… Well, where’s the conference committee?
“It’s sort of the [Sen.] Rand Paul attitude. Rand Paul, the successor to Henry Clay of Kentucky who was called the great compromiser. Rand Paul’s first speech on the Senate floor was about how he didn’t want to follow Henry Clay’s legacy. He didn’t want to compromise.
“We’ve lost our Congress. It’s lost. It’s become a Parliament. The difference is that congressmen vote their party line about 80 percent of the time. That’s what I do.
Parliamentarians vote their party 99 percent of the time. So you don’t have to think if you’re a parliamentarian. You just vote your party line.
“That’s what we’ve become. And if you don’t vote your party 95-99 percent of the time, you’re considered an unreliable, almost an outcast.
“This is a real tragedy for the country, because it means a lot of congressman aren’t thinking anymore. They’re just doing what their party bosses tell them to do.
“I’ve remained a congressman, voting Democratic a little over 80 percent of the time, which is what Tip O’Neill thought was plenty.
“The standard has changed.”
U.S. REP. STEVE COHEN OF MEMPHIS ANOUNCES FEDERAL FUNDING FOR PROGRAMS IN HIS DISTRICT ALMOST DAILY. ARE NASHVILLE PROGRAMS GETTING GRANTS, TOO?
“We don’t issue press releases on grants.”
‘WHY NOT?”
‘People tend not to care, except the grant recipients, and they know about it already. The rest of the community doesn’t really care.
“Also, I think, it creates an attitude that the government is filed with earmarks and special projects and things like that, when government should be for everybody. Steve, I’ll give him credit, he’s much better at publicity than I am. He also tweets more than I do. He’s got his style [and] his style is wonderful. We’re great friends. He invited me to a Nationals’ ball game with him the other night…
“I try to be low key and be friendly, and show up where people don’t expect me and not be a big shot.
“And just like at the Social Security office [where Martha Cooper waited her turn] and not jump line. Just be regular folks. That suits my style better.”
SO NASHVILLE’S GETTING ITS SHARE OF GRANTS?
“We just got one the other day for Dickson County and they’re thrilled. But see, what does Nashville care about Dickson County?”
[Cooper’s district office aide interjected that a $425,000 grant was recently awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for a program in Nashville.]
“It’s a little bit of the old politics [to issue such announcements.]
“Almost all of these are automatic. They’re formulaic, or they’re decided by bureaucrats who are balancing projects in Oklahoma versus Tennessee.
“The old days of a congressman, like Joe L. Evans being able to put a post office at every crossroads; gone. Earmarks have been banned by Congress.
“Really, if you ever see overt political manipulation, that’s a problem. And it may be illegal. Politicians are quick to claim credit, but one political motto that I’ve always liked says: ‘There’s no end to what can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit,’ because it’s about the greater good.
‘It’s about the greater good of everybody in the community. It’s not about saying, ‘I’m a big shot because I personally brought this money.’ It’s not my money. It’s taxpayer money, and they’re not happy about turning it over to the government, and they want to know that every penny is well spent.”
YOU HAVE AN EXAMPLE.
“The government has 13,000 bank accounts with a zero balance. We’re paying over $1 million a year in bank fees for no reason. The Obama administration has cut that in half. It used to be 30,000 accounts.”
HOW’D IT HAPPEN?
“It’s from left over grants. You must open an account for the grant and then they don’t close it and then the account accrues fees. This is part of the grantsmanship, and they don’t clean up their mess. Each little bit is small, but there are many, and in aggregate,
it’s embarrassing…”
[OTHER AREAS OF CONCERN.]
“I’m on the Armed Services Committee and the Pentagon is one of the largest items of federal spending. It’s completely un-auditable — forever. It’s been listed as one of the No. 1 risk factor in the government by the Government Accounting Office.
“[The Pentagon does] not want to be audited. We’ve been working on it for 20 years.”
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
“They’ll claim they have legacy [very old] computer systems that won’t be up to date with modern practices. We all agree that it’s about impossible [to conduct an audit] in a war zone, but this is a nightmare. They have a lot of power in the uniform.”
U.S. REP. DIANE BLACK OF GALLATIN TOLD ME HEADSTART SHOULD BE ELIMINATED BECAUSE IT’S NOT HELPING CHILDREN AND TEST SCORES SHOW THAT. IS THE PROGRAM IN JEOPARDY?
“I’ve always supported Headstart, but it has become Republican doctrine to oppose Headstart. This is the danger of having a parliamentary democracy. Many Republican congressmen, not all, feel like they have to support Republican doctrine, which would be to eliminate Headstart.
“If the Senate goes Republican, there will be no protection for the president, other than his veto. The Democratic Senate has protected the president on hundreds of votes.
“We all need more early child hood education. Headstart is a vital program, but we really need to do more. Every educator will tell you that. If a kid comes into kindergarten and doesn’t know their colors, or their numbers, it’s very hard for them to catch up. Headstart helps with that… [We need] more early childhood education, especially in the South to help our educational system.”
WHAT ARE NASHVILLE RESIDENTS TELLING YOU? WHAT DO THEY WANT?
“Nashville is one of the luckiest communities in America because Nashville is undergoing a better economy than most other parts of the country so people are, often times, wanting government to get out of the way so they can build more, grow their business more.
“Almost everybody is involved with the government in one way or another, and some are quieter about that than others, but we try to make government helpful.
“Probably the most visible issue here locally has been the AMP [Accessibility Management Platform] the mass transit [project]… When we talk about the mass transit funding and the highway bill, when we’re not funding regular roads, it’s hard for me to say ‘Oh yeah, there’s going to be a big pile of money available for mass transit projects in various states,’ so I gave the community a big heads up about that. And there’s been a big debate on whether it should be on West End, or on Charlotte, or exactly how it should be designed and now the mayor has a committee to focus on those issue in particular…”
WHAT ARE NORTH NASHVILLIANS TELLING YOU?
“A lot of work needs to be done about income inequality. After the Civil Rights movement, which isn’t complete yet, we need to look at more economic opportunity. There are various proposals to do it. The revitalization of Jefferson Street is a key part of it… I think there are no less than five development districts on Jefferson Street… It’s been a challenge because North Nashville has not enjoyed the benefits of growth like other areas, except for parts over in Germantown and Salemtown. The main stretch of Jefferson Street has needed help. One of our efforts has been to help Meharry, and TSU and Fisk and American Baptist…”
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
“I’m working with them privately. Each of them has numerous requests to the federal government. Often it’s grant requests. [There have been] some … leadership transitions… Dr. [Glenda Baskin] Glover seems to be great at TSU. I can’t claim credit for it, but Dr. [Forrest E.] Harris at American Baptist [College] got the historical status [for the school], which will help with tax breaks. You know, that’s where [U.S. Rep.] John Lewis [of Atlanta] went.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON PRESIDENT OBAMA AND AIDING THE SYRIAN REBELS?
“The fundamental question is whether the president likes me or not, and I think I can say that he does like me.
“We have a similar style. He’s low-key. He’s a little introverted. I’m low-key. I’m a little introverted. We both share the same law school, so from that standpoint, we get along great.
“You know the president came to speak to McGavock High School, and Tennessee is not a state that has helped him politically. I think I’m the only person who’s had a fundraiser for him in the state…
“I always greet him when he comes to our state. He is shunned by my Republicans colleagues. They haven’t shown up at all, not only when the president came here to Nashville, but when he went to Chattanooga, I drove down to Chattanooga so that I could be with him in the motorcade
“He doesn’t invite many people to fly with him on Air Force One, but who got to fly back with him on Air Force One?”
OUR CONGRESSMAN.
“Thank you. He even got into a little bit of trouble in identifying me, I’ve forgotten exactly the phrase he used, [but it was something like] ‘Our congressman, Jim Cooper,’ and I haven’t represented that area for a long time. I never represented Chattanooga, but I did have Rhea County and Sequatchie County right next to Hamilton County.
“On the war votes, the president has been a good steward of foreign policy. It’s not his fault that there’s more terrorism in the world. It’s not his fault that there’s Ebola. It’s not his fault that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a maniac. But the president gets blamed for all the problems in the world and, regardless of who’s president, we overburden our president, because every problem in the world is his.
“It’s possible in the next two years we’ll be using a different pronoun, we’ll say, ‘Every problem is hers,’” if Hillary Clinton is elected president.
“One of the saddest things is the way you see the president’s hair turn grey right before your eyes. Every year in the White House is equal to about 10 years of regular life. How can you sleep a night when every bombing, every beheading, every outbreak of disease every thing that goes wrong in the world is your problem because it’s on your watch and therefore your fault?
“I think that’s an unfair standard, because I think we have the greatest country in the world but we don’t run the world and we’re not the world’s policeman.
“So, I’ve tried on the Armed Services Committee to support the president’s priorities, but I don’t give anybody a blank check. I don’t give my wife a blank check and she, for sure, doesn’t give me a blank check, but we try to work cooperatively.”
NOW, ABOUT SYRIA?
“Syria is extraordinarily complex [Cooper wrote nearly 1,000 words for his website] but the vote we had was to train and equip the Syrian rebels for 90 days and we’re not going to pay for that. How was that a helpful intervention in this conflict?”
[COOPER VOTED NO.]
As for “the bombing the president has been conducting, we didn’t have a vote on that, and by the way, we probably should have a vote on that. That was always the president’s position; that the Congress should go on record. We shouldn’t duck or hide behind the president. But see, so many of my colleagues want it both ways. They’re quick to criticize him, but they’re also quick to hide behind him when that’s convenient.
“I think the president was correct when he described, a month ago, the Syrian opposition as a bunch of farmers, lawyers and pharmacists. This is a very untrained fighting force, and 90 days of training, for sure, isn’t going to do much. And they face three merciless professional armies at the same time. Even for a civilian group to take on one army would be devastating, but to take on three armies simultaneously…
“I tried to support the President, and half the Democratic Party agreed with me; ‘this [plan to support Syria] is a stretch.”
CONGRESS HAS BEEN VOTING ON LEGISLATION REGARDING MARIJUANA. ONE WOULD PROHIBIT STATES FROM PENALIZING BANKS FOR PROVIDING FINANCIAL SERVICES TO MARIJUANA BUSINESSES. ANOTHER WOULD KEEP FEDERAL AGENCIES FROM PROHIBITING STATES FROM AUTHORIZING MEDICAL MARIJUANA.
“I do think we’ve had overly harsh prison sentences for nonviolent offenders. Our prisons are full. That’s the number one issue… Most of these issues are state issues… It’s true that marijuana is still a prohibited substance. It’s contraband under federal law. The attorney general, Eric Holder, has worked out a compromise on that. [Federal law enforcement agencies are deferring to the states.] I think we should wait and see what Colorado and Washington states’ experience is with some of these things, and also the other states that have explicitly endorsed medical marijuana like California… In some states you find it properly implemented and in some states, it’s not just being used for medical purposes.”
WHERE YOU CAN SNEEZE AND GET A MARIJUANA PERMIT.
“Well, yeah. There was an instance here at Vanderbilt where the former chancellor’s wife was found to be growing pot in the chancellor’s residence because she had some [medical issues.]
“For genuine medical treatment, I voted to allow, in the VA system, which is federal, for VA doctors to counsel patients on marijuana use as therapy, because you shouldn’t have a gag over on physicians. You know, medicine comes first, but I don’t think Tennessee is ready yet to legalize marijuana, but when and if it does come, it will be a state decision and not a federal government decision.”
WHAT ABOUT THE SO-CALLED MILITARIZATION OF POLICE DEPARTMENTS WITH SURPLUS ARMY EQUIPMENT AND YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT HAPPENED IN FERGUSON, MO., WHERE MICHAEL BROWN WAS SHOT TO DEATH BY A POLICEMAN ON AUG. 9?
“Ferguson is a national nightmare, but the real nightmare there is apparently an innocent young black man was gunned down in the street and his body left to rot for four hours. That’s just inexcusable behavior.
“The justice system is at work and the Justice Department is involved, so its not just a local prosecutorial matter, Eric Holder himself was there.
“I just hope and pray that we can have a police system that people of all races respect and can appreciate. Right now, we don’t have that in many parts of the country including Ferguson.
“I think the best way to solve the problems in Ferguson is to have greater black turn out in elections because they can run the police force … If you look a black [voter] turnout and white turnout in that district, it’s shockingly disparate.
“But remember Republican efforts in recent elections to minimize the vote. This is an example of why we can’t let them do that because we need as many people voting as possible.”
As for military equipment given to police departments: “It’s overkill, but we’ve seen this since World War II with the Army surplus stores selling a lot of things that people didn’t need, but a lot of people think it’s cool to have, but it was used to intimidate the crowd in Ferguson. Now, I’m all for protecting policemen, but you don’t need to intimidate people who are expressing their first amendment rights.
U.S. REP. SCOTT DES JARLAIS REPRESENTS YOUR OLD DISTRICT AND WON THE GOP PRIMARY BY 38 VOTES OVER STATE SEN. JIM TRACY OF SHELBYVILLE. DES JARLAIS HAS SPOKEN ABOUT GOING WITH YOU TO A NONPARTISAN MEETING OF CONGRESSMEN AND NOW HE FACES DEMOCRAT LENDA SHERREL ON NOV. 4. TALK ABOUT THAT, PLEASE.
“I’m a strong supporter of Lenda Sherrell. We had a fundraiser for her here in Nashville for her last night. She’s a first rate candidate. She’s a great lady.
“I hesitate to talk about current colleagues because I have to work with them. I think [DesJarlais] is talking about a ‘no labels’ meeting [but] Scott… claims to be the third most conservative in the House, which means that he votes more with the Republicans than so many else. He’s not really free to vote as he would like to vote, and he’s been distracted with a lot of these issues, not just the ethical issues, but also with his health situation.”
DES JARLAIS SAYS HIS CANCER WAS CAUGHT EARLY AND ISN’T AN ISSUE.
“I’ve had cancer myself, so it’s not a fun thing to have.
“He was listed in a nationwide article as one of the four most surprising winners. They called them the four GOP Bad Boys. One’s under indictment in Staten Island…”
“He was kind of leading the list, but it was kind of shocking that Tennessee Republicans would accept him [DesJarlais] but it’s for them to judge. I don’t get to vote in the 4th District.”
SOME SAID RELIGION TEACHES THEM TO FORGIVE.
“Who knows what the reason is? But it becomes laugh material in the late night talk shows.
“Everybody thought it would be an easy win for Jim [Tracy]. It was not just surprising, but a real shock, and he [Tracy] was probably the person who was the most surprised. I was surprised they resolved the election’s results so quickly.”
IS SOCIAL SECURITY FISCALLY SOUND?
“It’s in much better shape than Medicare, and the problems that exist in Social Security are very easily fixable. It just takes congressional guts to do it and those guts have been lacking.”
SOME SUGGEST INCREASING THE RETIREMENT AGE. PEOPLE LIVE LONGER.
“It’s too simple a solution to say raise the retirement age. In 1983 we raised the full retirement age from 65 to 67 and it’s phased-in one month a year…
“The real worry we should have is in Medicare and Medicaid. With Medicare, you’re only eligible at 65. There’s no early in on that like age 62 with Social Security. Different people have different lifestyles and professions. You can’t tell a coal miner to wait. They’ve lived a hard life and they need help early on. Many professions need it early on.
Some people can wait, and those are the lucky few but we should try to give people as much choice as possible.
“We need to better fund these benefits, and there are different ways to do that. The best way is to avoid waste. I teach health care policy at Vanderbilt. Estimates are as high as one third of Medicare money is being wasted.”
Cooper assigned his students to read a story in The New Yorker magazine and referred to a New York Times’ story on the subject. Two drugs will treat the same eye disease.
“One costs $100,000 and the other costs $500. Both are equally effective. Which one do our local doctors choose? The $100,000 one, knowing Medicare will pay the bills. The way some practices work, the doctors are able to get more money by prescribing the $100,000 one. It makes you worried and suspicious that we’re not practicing cost effective medicine here. If the two are equally effective, why not go with the more efficient one?”
He shares more news reports, paraphrasing, “The disparity is so great in America now that if you are on Medicare and are retired in Florida, your physician can be paid 2-3 times more than what they’d be paid if they were in Minnesota. Yet people are healthier in Minnesota. What’s going on here?
“There’s even a book on this that says it’s now worth it for the federal government to give every senior in Florida a free, fully-loaded Lexus if they just do one thing. Go to the Mayo Clinic, and now there’s a Mayo Clinic in Florida, so you don’t have to go to Minnesota to get the care. The Mayo Clinic is that much more efficient.”
He calls it “a shocking disparity,” and says America should “avoid the waste.”
DID YOU EVER WISH YOU’D NOT RUN FOR THE SENATE?
“It was a learning experience, but it turned out to be a well-disguised blessing.”
He was able to go into private business when America’s economy was very favorable.
SINCE YOUR FATHER WAS GOVERNOR, YOU MUST HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT POSITION.
“State politics has never been as interesting to me as national politics. I like it that we live in the greatest nation in the world and it’s our job to keep America No. 1. Being governor has attraction for some, but it’s never been that interesting to me.
“Having focused on federal issues, I know them pretty well, and federal issues can be quite different from state issues.”
YOU’RE FROM SHELBYVILLE WHERE THE TENNESSEE WALKING HORSE INDUSRY HAS FACED RECURRING QUESTIONS ABOUT TREATMENT OF HORSES. REPUBLICAN U.S. REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (7th TN) OF BRENTWOOD WANTS A NEW LAW TO DEAL WITH DECADES OF CONTROVERSEY OVER HOW THE HORSES ARE TRAINED. YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS?
“Marsha’s [bill] has about 12 cosponsors. The other has about 305 cosponsors.
“They both claim to clean up the industry. The one with the 305 cosponsors is the one that every other horse association and veterinary association and other trusted folks say would do the job. I haven’t cosponsored either one. Having been raised in Shelbyville, I’m very sensitive to local issues. I want the horse show to succeed. I want the breed to succeed. But I think that everyone would acknowledge today that by not having cleaned up the industry, we’ve gotten tons of bad publicity that hurts the [horse] show and hurts the breed. So we need to do whatever it takes to stop the bad publicity. I, for one, am losing patience because all it takes is one bad apple to spoil the barrel.”
YOU’RE NOT BLAMING THE MEDIA OR THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES ARE YOU?
“No, but if they can find one bad apple, then that example will be spread nationwide and the whole breed will get a bad name, so we need to have zero tolerance for these people who abuse horses.
“The standards are changing. It used to be that you could get away with things that you can’t get away with today. That’s probably a good thing.”
[COOPER RECALLS RUTHERFORD COUNTY’S ANIMAL SHELTER INCLUDED METAL “DROP OFF BOXES” FOR UNWANTED PETS WHEN COUNTY EMPLOYEES WEREN’T AT THE SHELTER. A GERMAN TV NEWS CREW COVERED THE STORY THAT WAS WIDELY PUBLICIZED IN THE U.S.]
“Pets are being treated better.
“The Germans apparently have a type of walking horse show where there are no pads [that elevate the hoofs] and no mistreatment
“The public is getting tired of waiting [for an end to mistreatment of some Tennessee Walking Horses]. I think the show has already suffered by having all this bad publicity, so let’s clean up the industry once and for all, so no one raises questions about this.
“Other breeds of horses are not blameless. I’ve seen horses being put down here at the Nashville Steeplechase. And, is it natural for a human being to ride a horse over a five-foot hurdle and a creek and a hedge? There is weird stuff that goes on with different kinds of horses. Rodeo isn’t necessarily natural. But the Walking Horse has been singled out for a long time and it has not responded in a way to resolve the problems.
“Remember why [Shelbyville] didn’t get the arena that went to Murfreesboro? It’s because of the Alaska oilman who gave all that money.
[A $21 million, 222,000-square-foot arena is named for John C. "Tennessee" Miller at the request of his widow. Middle Tennessee State University received a gift that grew to more than $25 million.]
“Tennessee Miller thought the judges in Shelbyville were corrupt… That’s a mess. That’s got to go away… It’s always been a family event. I’d been to it for 50 years in a row. The brand has been damaged. We need to reclaim the brand.”
YOU’VE CRITICIZED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S PRACTICE OF CASH ACCOUNTING, AND ADVOCATED ACCURAL ACCOUNTING WITH ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AND RECEIVABLE BECAUSE THE LATTER WOULD MORE ACCURATELY REFLECT THE NATIONAL DEBT. IT’S TWICE THE SIZE OF WHAT’S REPORTED, YOU SAY. HAS THERE BEEN PROGRESS ON THIS?
“A few of the large accounting firms have been more open in their advocacy, but the accounting association, the AICPA, has not yet endorsed it. There is increased awareness of our long-term liabilities, and the Congressional Budget Office has gotten better at pointing out the out-year problems.
“Right now, economically, we’re like in the eye of the hurricane. We’ve been though a tough economic storm, the greatest recession since the Depression. That’s what Obama was handed when he entered the office by [George W.] Bush. Now it’s better, but we’re about to have a rough patch coming, and everybody knows it. The deficit has gone down in size, but by all measures, it’s going to go right back up.
“Interest rates are at an all time low, so when interest rates return to normal, our debt service will double and triple,
“And also we’re going to have to pay for the baby boomers; a thousand retire every day… That adds up… and they have Medicare and Social Security and other needs. We need to be preparing for this better than we have been.
“Another problem is that under Bush we never paid for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, we’ve gotten very used to not paying for our military commitments.”
[COOPER’S WEB SITE GOES INTO GREATER DETAIL.]
“Some people hold out hope that the Saudis are going to pay the bills, or the Jordanians, or the Turkish people. Like, give me a break. It’s very unlikely.”
BUT THEY’VE GOT ALL THE OIL MONEY.
“We gave them that oil money and that’s why with the U.S. energy boom, we need to take advantage of that and finally wean ourselves. We have made the Middle East a cauldron. It’s the greatest transfer of wealth in the world.
“There are ways to reduce these problems, but it’s not President Obama’s fault. A lot of it is our fault. But the public doesn’t want to acknowledge that. After the first oil crisis in 1973, only then did Americans invent the SUV to use more gas. Before that we had station wagons. Much smaller.
WHAT WOULD YOU POINT TO AS SOMETHING YOU DID AS A CONGRESSMAN THAT YOU’RE PROUD OF?
“Passing Obama Care. It only passed by a couple of votes.
“And that’s very controversial. There are folks in the White House — this is controversial, but — who give me more credit than you would imagine for solving some of these problems. This is one reason, like, of all the congressmen who were invited to the president’s health care summit in Blair House [across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House] — the location that actually Lamar [Alexander, who’s running for reelection to the Senate] used in his TV ad — who got invited? I’m not even on a health committee. The chairman of the Health Sub committee did not get invited.”
BUT YOU WERE INVITED BY THE PRESIDENT. WHAT’S HE LIKE IN PERSON?
Obama “is charming. He is absolutely brilliant. He is so much smarter than Clinton. You cannot imagine it. And he is so much more disciplined. And it’s wonderful. If Clinton had his mother-in-law living in the White House with him… [laughter.] Obama, he’s a good man. He genuinely loves his wife and his daughters. He is a model citizen and yet people dump all over him. He is so patient and so incisive. He didn’t get to be editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review by affirmative action, or tokenism. He earned it. He is absolutely brilliant. Now, he’s a law professor. He’s not a backslapper, and he won’t eat every Big Mac in the room like Bill Clinton, and he won’t seduce the audience like Clinton would, but seduction can be a dangerous thing. So, he’s an amazing president and I think he will go down in history as so much stronger than he’s regarded today. He could still go down as one of the greats because every president since Teddy Roosevelt has tried to give us heath insurance. Only Obama did.
WITH YOUR HELP.
“Well, there are a number of other things where he’s had absolute landmark accomplishments but some of them are hard to understand today. You know, it’s amazing; the hopes of the world, in many ways have been riding on his shoulders, because he was given the Nobel Peace Prize almost before he got sworn in. People were so relieved that he was already so much better than Bush. But also that gave him unrealistically high expectations because he didn’t come into office with a halo and wings. Nobody’s got that, but he’s an amazing individual and I think often times he’s been poorly served by staff. Many of his cabinet members have not been first rate, and perhaps you can blame him for that, but some presidents get lucky and the world is at peace while some presidents don’t and the world is in turmoil.”
AND HOLDER’S LEAVING THE JUSTICE DEPARTENT AS SOON AS A SUCCESSOR IS APPROVED.
“I think General Holder did a fine job, but six years is a long time to hold that position. And it will be a chance for another person to serve the president and I hope he or she will serve with distinction.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO TRIBUNE READERS?
“I love everyone in the community. I try to do my level best to help everyone have a better life and their share of the American dream.”
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