Chicago millionaire, John Cox is first 2008 presidential candidate to visit city

By LEE HENDREN, T&D Staff Writer
Friday, April 07, 2006

Accountant, youth basketball coach, venture capitalist, millionaire business owner, Catholic, staunch conservative Republican — and now, candidate for president of the United States of America.

John H. Cox, who is virtually unknown outside his home state of Illinois, has been crisscrossing states with early primaries, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Stopping in Orangeburg (South Carolina) for an interview Wednesday, Cox said his lack of political experience — except for a stint on a local zoning appeals board — is actually a benefit.

“Career politicians have been ill-serving our country,” he said. “Politics should not be a business” or an opportunity to obtain jobs for family members and cronies.

“We need statesmen,” he said, adding that he intends to win the presidency by “talking about ideas” with party leaders, journalists and others in “the grassroots.”

In South Carolina this week, he is visiting traditionally Democratic areas like Orangeburg as well as traditionally Republican domains such as Beaufort County and Greenville.

Cox calls himself a “progressive conservative” — a conservative who supports moving toward a smaller government and a larger private sector.

“South Carolina is a case study in economic policies that have hurt industries,” Cox said. He called for streamlining regulations and reducing taxes. It worked for Ireland, he said.

Cox was asked how, as a conservative Republican from Chicago, he intended to appeal to African-American Democrats.

He replied that Democrats traditionally promise African-Americans that the government “will take care of you.” But that’s a hollow promise that can’t be kept, he said.

“Real opportunity,” he said, “is empowerment of yourself.”

“It’s our party that has their best interests” at heart, Cox said. “We’re the party that stood up for the Civil Rights Act. We’re the party of Abraham Lincoln.”

Cox shared his views on several hot topics:

* Iraq. Saddam Hussein was an “absolute despot” and President Bush was right to invade Iraq, Cox said.

The thousands of American casualties are regrettable, but the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were a “greater evil,” he said.

“I’d rather fight in Baghdad than in South Carolina,” he said. “I know that sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.”

As president, his top priority with regard to Iraq would be to get the oil flowing at pre-war levels. Oil revenues would bring in $50 billion a year that could be used to rebuild Iraq, reduce unemployment and restore peace, he said.

It would also reduce U.S. spending and thus the national deficit, he said.

“We’re spending our children’s future,” Cox said.

* Immigration. “Career politicians are trying to gin up antagonism” among the races, when immigration is essentially an “economic issue,” he said.

Central Americans will always find ways to sneak across the border as long as jobs exist for them, he said. The way to discourage illegal immigrants is to eliminate the jobs, by cracking down hard on their employers.

“We need to expand legal immigration” for entire families who want to settle in the U.S., work legally, spend their earnings here and grow the U.S. economy, Cox said.

* Taxes. “We tax investments, not consumption. That’s stupid, to put it bluntly,” said Cox, who proposes replacing the income tax with a 15 percent national sales tax. That would eliminate the $300 billion a year cost of preparing and processing income tax forms, he said.

* Health care. To reduce the cost of prescription drugs, without destroying American pharmaceutical firms’ access to money to research and develop new drugs, Cox says the U.S. needs to somehow convince other major Western nations to relax or eliminate their price controls on pharmaceuticals.

* Education. Cox, whose mother was a school teacher, is a strong advocate of school choice. Competition forces public schools not to spend their money in wasteful ways, he said. Technology soon will give parents and their children far more educational choices and opportunities.

* Tort reform. If you file a lawsuit and lose, you ought to be required to pay the defendant’s legal costs, Cox said. That will reduce the number of frivolous, yet expensive, lawsuits, he said.

A book by Cox titled “Politics Inc.” is due out next month. Meanwhile, more information about the candidate can be found online at www.Cox2008.com.


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