William Proxmire was born in 1915 in Lake Forrest, Illinois. His college career took him to both Yale, and Harvard Business School. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Proxmire enlisted in the Army. He spent the next five years in the Army's counter-intelligence division, before being discharged in 1946.
After his discharge from the Army, Proxmire moved to Wisconsin and became a reporter. His first job was at the Capital Times in Madison. Journalism turned out to be even more bumpy of a career than the Army. He was fired from his first newspaper after just 7 months. He bumped around from job to job reporting for various news organizations in Wisconsin until he met the man who would inspire him to make yet another career change.
Robert La Follette grew up as a farmer in Dane County, Wisconsin. He later became a lawyer, and even the District Attorney of Dane County. He was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1891. He was elected Governor of Wisconsin in 1900.
La Follette's wife, Bella, was a feminist; she championed women's suffrage rights, racial equality, and other progressive issues. This was, of course, at a time when diversity within the GOP was welcomed. There was both a right and a left wing of the Republican Party.
In 1912, La Follette supported Woodrow Wilson for president. That support for Wilson evaporated when the US entered World War 1. La Follette was later accused of treason because he opposed conscription and opposed passage of the Espionage Act.
La Follette left the Republican Party, but never gained any traction as a third party candidate. He later died in 1925
Meanwhile, Proxmire failed in three attempts to become Governor of Wisconsin. But he was later elected to the Senate in 1957 to replace Joseph McCarthy who had died.
In the Senate, William Proxmire once again championed progressive causes, and often clashed with Lyndon Johnson on civil rights issues. Johnson opposed civil rights reforms at that time.
In the 1960's, Proxmire opposed the Vietnam War and accused Johnson of misleading Congress into the war. He used his seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee to spotlight wasteful military spending and pork projects.
In 1975, Proxmire published the first of his famous Golden Fleece Awards, highlighting wasteful government spending. Proxmire retired from the Senate in 1988, and died in 2005.
The first Golden Fleece Award was given to the National Science Foundation in 1975, for their $84,000 public taxpayer's funding for why people fall in love. Other award winners were the Department of Justice, for their public taxpayer's funding for why people wanted to get out of prison. He awarded the Golden Fleece to the National Institute of Mental Health for their public taxpayer funding to study a Peruvian brothel. He also awarded a prize to the FAA for their public taxpayer's money to study the size of women's butts.
William Proxmire was a champion of fiscal responsibility, proving the point that a progressive could also be responsive to wasteful government spending.
And you probably thought that the Republicans had a lock on the issue of fiscal responsibility!
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