Fred’s Closet Has a Big Gov't Skeleton

Thompson lobbied for reactor that leeched taxpayer dollars
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 15, 2007 11:22 AM CDT
Fred’s Closet Has a Big Gov't Skeleton
United States former senator Fred Thompson delivers a speech at the right-wing British think tank Policy Exchange in London, Tuesday, June 19, 2007. The United States will miss Tony Blair, even if the special relationship between the United States and Britain will endure through the leadership changes...   (Associated Press)

Fred Thompson, would-be president, bills himself as a small-government hero, but the southerner once had a way with spending taxpayer bucks. A nuclear breeder reactor planned for the banks of a Tennessee river ran through $1.7 billion in government funds between 1970 and 1983 without ever getting built; Thompson was an instrumental lobbyist for the contractors, Politico reports.

He remained thick as thieves with Westinghouse and Stone & Webster for the next 10 years, even serving on one of their boards. Said a Thompson supporter, “This is the problem with lobbying: It may have been lucrative, but it makes it hard to be true to your school.” (More Fred Thompson stories.)

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