Jack Kemp

Jack French Kemp, Jr. (born July 13, 1935) is an American neocon politician and former professional American football player. He was the Republican candidate for the Vice Presidency in the 1996 Presidential election.

Political career

Kemp represented the Buffalo, New York region in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1989. In 1988 he ran unsuccessfully for the Republican Presidential nomination, and subsequently served as the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development|Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush.

Kemp was the Republican Party's Vice Presidential nominee in 1996, running alongside Senator Bob Dole.

Think tankery

Although mentioned as a possible 2000 presidential candidate, Kemp did not run, instead endorsing eventual winner Governor of Texas George W. Bush.

Jack Kemp also started the free market advocacy group Empower America, which later merged with Citizens for a Sound Economy to form FreedomWorks, but resigned as Co-Chairman of FreedomWorks in March 2005 after he was questioned by the FBI about his ties to Samir Vincent, a Northern Virginia oil trader implicated in the U.N. Oil-for-food scandal who pled guilty to four criminal charges stemming from the scandal, including illegally acting as an unregistered lobbyist of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein^[1]

[His legacy includes the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut of the 1980s, also known as the first of the two "Reagan tax cuts." He also served at a Distinguished Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute where he wrote regularly on economic and regulatory issues.

Afflitiations

• Committee on the Present Danger
• Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Headline text

^Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball Newsweek 19th January 2005 FBI Grills Jack Kemp About Iraqi Contact