Lugar stays the course against era's headwinds

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar recalls returning home from the Navy to find the family manufacturing business going under and teaming up with his brother to see if they could save it.

"We were trying to keep the factory gates open," the six-term senator said at a recent breakfast of the BusINess magazine advisory board.

To get the Thomas L. Green & Co. humming again after the death of their father, Lugar and his brother, Tom, realized innovation would be the key.

That led Lugar to secure credits from the U.S. government's Export-Import Bank in Washington, D.C. Before long, the small Indianapolis company was exporting its cracker and biscuit-making machinery to customers in Mexico, South America and the Philippines.

"We then employed 50 more people and we had about 150 at the time I ran for mayor (of Indianapolis) and my brother was left holding the bag," Lugar said. Tom remains chairman of the company their grandfather founded in 1893.

Lugar's anecdote stood in stark contrast to his report on the bitterly partisan 112th Congress, with the anecdote evoking the optimism and international outlook the six-term senator has brought to bear on some of the world's most intractable problems. 

Some of those accomplishments are now in the history books.

Along with U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, of Georgia, Lugar in 1991 engineered the historic legislation and agreements that still bear their names, leading to the deactivation of more than 7,500 Soviet-era warheads once aimed at the United States.

In 1996, he forged bipartisan support for "freedom to farm" legislation which curtailed 1930s-era federal production controls on farmers. In doing so, he had to overcome divisions between farm and non-farm state lawmakers as well as reach across the aisle in the aftermath of the Republican Revolution that swept his party into control of both houses.

At 79 years old, Lugar is in the midst of what is set to be one of the most hotly contested Republican primaries of his political career.

Republican State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, with a good dose of Tea Party support, was the first Republican to throw his hat into the ring to oppose Lugar in 2012.

Already campaigning hard, Lugar made it clear he will not abandon the causes that have meant so much to him and ultimately to his nation. He also made it clear he won't join in the "devil take the hindmost" attitude some legislators are bringing to Washington.

"We had people in the Congress saying we won't raise the debt ceiling – ever ... there are some moments with a theological bent of this sort," Lugar said.

Lugar said it was near miraculous Congress acted at all on the debt ceiling, given how divisive and partisan the politics there have become.

Having said that, Lugar said he was intent on seeing deficits reduced and policy put in place to eventually balance the budget. He pointed out he was one of 40 Republican senators that voted for the so-called "Ryan budget," the proposal of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan passed by the House that would have led to deep cuts in federal spending and converted Medicare into a voucher program.

The senator struck a decidedly cautious tone on the revolutions sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

He said he did the same when he was one of five Congressional leaders summoned to a top-level meeting with President Obama on Libya before the United States became involved there.

"I was sort of the skeptic in the room and I indicated frankly that Libya was not a strategic interest of the United States," Lugar said. "Our armed forces are stretched."

Lugar said he counseled the president that the United States should let its European allies take care of Libya if they were so inclined.

"The president found that viewpoint totally unacceptable," Lugar said. "He said, 'We're not going to be in hostilities. We won't be at war, no boots on the ground. We will only be involved for a few weeks.'"

Throughout the BusINess advisory board breakfast, Lugar kept returning to the subject of jobs and how he intends to promote policies that can help people bridge the "skills gap" so they can get new jobs.

"The political rhetoric of jobs, jobs, jobs is very easy to keep repeating, but the specifics of how people are actually going to qualify for those jobs, or if you aren't employed how you'll find such services, is somehow evading us," Lugar said.

Efforts in Indiana by Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana University, and Purdue University offer much promise, Lugar said. But more clearly has to be done.

"I look at it from that standpoint, this is a state of large businesses that are very successful and we are grateful for that," Lugar said. "But it now has to be a state of small businesses, startups, incubators of angel investors and things that all of you talk about very frequently. I'm encourage this is happening in Indiana, but it will require a great deal of encouragement."