David Stockman

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David Stockman
David Stockman Michigan.png
David Stockman during his first congressional term, c. 1975
25th Director of the Office of Management and Budget
In office
January 21, 1981 – August 1, 1985
President Ronald Reagan
Preceded by James T. McIntyre
Succeeded by James C. Miller III
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Michigan's 4th district
In office
January 3, 1977 – January 21, 1981
Preceded by J. Edward Hutchinson
Succeeded by Mark D. Siljander
Personal details
Born David Alan Stockman
(1946-11-10) November 10, 1946 (age 77)
Fort Hood, Texas
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Jennifer Blei Stockman (m. 1983)[1]
Alma mater Michigan State University
Harvard University
Profession Businessman
Religion Methodist
Website http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com

David Alan Stockman (born November 10, 1946) is a former businessman and U.S. politician who served as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan (1977–1981) and as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) under President Ronald Reagan.

Early life and education

Stockman was born in Fort Hood, Texas, the son of Allen Stockman, a fruit farmer, and Carol (née Bartz).[2] He is of German descent, and his family's surname was originally "Stockmann".[3] He was raised in a conservative family, and his maternal grandfather, William Bartz, was a Republican county treasurer for 30 years.[4][5] Stockman was educated at public schools in Stevensville, Michigan. He graduated from Lakeshore High School in 1964[6] and received a B.A. in history from Michigan State University in 1968. He was a graduate student at Harvard University, 1968–1970 and 1974–1975. He attended Harvard Divinity School.[7]

Political career

He served as special assistant to United States Representative and 1980 U.S. presidential candidate John Anderson of Illinois, 1970–1972, and was executive director, United States House of Representatives Republican Conference, 1972–1975.

Congress

Stockman was elected to the United States House of Representatives for the 95th Congress and was reelected in two subsequent elections, serving from January 3, 1977, until his resignation January 21, 1981, to accept appointment as Director of the Office of Management and Budget for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Office of Management and Budget

Stockman became one of the most controversial OMB directors ever, which lasted until his resignation in August 1985. Committed to the doctrine of supply-side economics, he assisted in the passing of the "Reagan Budget" (the Gramm-Latta Budget), which Stockman hoped would be a serious curtailment of the "welfare state". He thus gained a reputation as a tough negotiator with House Speaker Tip O'Neill's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Majority Leader Howard Baker's Republican-controlled Senate. During this period, Stockman became well known to the public during the contentious political wrangling concerning the role of the federal government in American society.

Stockman's influence within the Reagan Administration was negatively affected after the Atlantic Monthly magazine published the infamous 18,246 word article, "The Education of David Stockman",[7] in its December 1981 issue, based on lengthy interviews Stockman gave to reporter William Greider.

Stockman was quoted as referring to Reagan's tax act as: "I mean, Kemp-Roth [Reagan's 1981 tax cut] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.... It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down.' So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[7] Of the budget process during his first year on the job, Stockman was quoted as saying: "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," which was used as the subtitle of the article.[7]

After "being taken to the woodshed by the president" due to his candor with Atlantic Monthly's William Greider, Stockman became concerned with the projected trend of increasingly large federal deficits and the rapidly expanding national debt. On 1 August 1985, he resigned OMB and later wrote a memoir of his experience in the Reagan Administration titled The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, in which he specifically criticized the failure of congressional Republicans to endorse a reduction of government spending to offset large tax decreases, in order to avoid the creation of large deficits and an increasing national debt.

Fiscal legacy

President Jimmy Carter's last fiscal year budget ended with a $79.0 billion budget deficit (and a national debt of $907,701,000,000 [8] as of September 30, 1980), ending during the period of David Stockman's and Ronald Reagan's first year in office, on October 1, 1981.[9] The gross federal national debt had just increased to $1.0 trillion during October 1981 ($998 billion on 30 September 1981, up from $907.7 billion during the last full fiscal year of the Carter administration[8]).

By 30 September 1985, four and a half years into the Reagan administration and shortly after Stockman's resignation from the OMB during August 1985, the gross federal debt was $1.8 trillion.[8] Stockman's OMB work within the administration during 1981 until August 1985 was dedicated to negotiating with the Senate and House about the next fiscal year's budget, executed later during the autumn of 1985, which resulted in the national debt becoming $2.1 trillion at fiscal year end 30 September 1986.[8]

In 1981, Stockman received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[10]

Business career

After leaving government, Stockman joined the Wall St. investment bank Salomon Brothers and later became a partner of the New York–based private equity company, the Blackstone Group.[11]:125–127 His record was mixed at Blackstone, with some very good investments, such as American Axle, but also several large failures, including Haynes International and Republic Technologies.[11]:144–147 During 1999, after Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman curtailed Stockman's role in managing the investments he had developed,[11]:146 Stockman resigned from Blackstone to start his own private equity fund company, Heartland Industrial Partners, L.P., based in Greenwich, Connecticut.[12]

On the strength of his investment record at Blackstone, Stockman and his partners raised $1.3 billion of equity from institutional and other investors. With Stockman's guidance, Heartland used a contrarian investment strategy, buying controlling interests in companies operating in sectors of the U.S. economy that were attracting the least amount of new equity: auto parts and textiles. With the help of about $9 billion in Wall Street debt financing, Heartland completed more than 20 transactions in less than 2 years to create four portfolio companies: Springs Industries, Metaldyne, Collins & Aikman, and TriMas. Several major investments performed very poorly, however. Collins & Aikman filed for bankruptcy during 2005 and when Heartland sold Metaldyne to Asahi Tec Corp. during 2006, Heartland lost most of the $340 million of equity it had invested in the business.[13]

Collins & Aikman Corp.

During August 2003, Stockman became CEO of Collins & Aikman Corporation, a Detroit-based manufacturer of automotive interior components. He was ousted from that job days before Collins & Aikman filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 on May 17, 2005.

Criminal and civil charges

On March 26, 2007, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted Stockman in "a scheme ... to defraud [Collins & Aikman]'s investors, banks and creditors by manipulating C&A's reported revenues and earnings." At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil charges against Stockman related to actions he performed while CEO of Collins & Aikman.[14] Stockman suffered a personal financial loss, estimated at $13 million, along with losses suffered by as many as 15,000 Collins & Aikman employees worldwide.

Stockman said in a statement posted on his law firm's website that the company's end was the consequence of an industry decline, not fraud.[15] On January 9, 2009, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced that it did not intend to prosecute Stockman for this case.[16]

Publishing

In March 2014 Stockman launched a web based daily periodical, David Stockman's Contra Corner featuring both his own articles and those from leading contrarian thinkers on geopolitics, economics, and finance.

Personal life

Stockman lives in Greenwich, Connecticut.[12] He is married to Jennifer Blei Stockman and is the father of two children, Rachel and Victoria. Jennifer Blei Stockman is a chairwoman emerita of the Republican Majority for Choice,[17] and President of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Board of Trustees.[18] In 2013, Stockman signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage.[19]

Quotes

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. "(Social Security) has to be means-tested. And Medicare needs to be means-tested...Let the Bush tax cuts expire. Let the capital gains go back to the same rate as ordinary income."[20]

"The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job in our democracy, which is to act as the guardian of fiscal discipline and responsibility. They're on an anti-tax jihad -- one that benefits the prosperous classes."[21]

"I invest in anything that Bernanke can’t destroy, including gold, canned beans, bottled water and flashlight batteries."[22]

"Ninety-two percent of the wealth is owned by five percent of the people." (Bloomberg TV 2013)

"[T]he Republican Party was hijacked by modern imperialists during the Reagan era. As a consequence, the conservative party cannot perform its natural function as watchdog of the public purse because it is constantly seeking legislative action to provision a vast war machine of invasion and occupation." [23]

Works

  • David Alan Stockman, The Reagan Economic Plan, 1981
  • David Alan Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, Harper & Row, 1986, ISBN 978-0060155605
  • David Alan Stockman, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, PublicAffairs, 2013, ISBN 978-1586489120

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Treasury Department's Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 1950 - 1999
  9. ↑ Office of Management and Budget Historical Tables see Table 1.1 (Excel Spreadsheet)
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Collins & Aikman seeks to emerge from bankruptcy," Bloomberg News article by Jeff Bennett, published in the newspaper The Advocate of Stamford and (identical version, perhaps with changes by the local editor in the common business section for both newspapers) in the Greenwich Time on September 5, 2006, page A7, The Advocate
  13. ↑ David Carey and Lou Whiteman, "PE firms find buyer for Metaldyne," The Deal, Sept. 1, 2006.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ About Us Republican Majority for Choice
  18. ↑ Trustees, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
  19. ↑ [1]
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ David Stockman: I Invest In Anything Bernanke Can't Destroy, John Carney, CNBC, October 6, 2010
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Michigan's 4th congressional district
1977–1981		 Succeeded by
Mark D. Siljander
Political offices
Preceded by Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Served under: Ronald Reagan
1981–1985		 Succeeded by
James C. Miller III
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