Lloyd Millard Bentsen Jr. (February 11, 1921 – May 23, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 69th United States secretary of the treasury under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1994. He served as a United States senator from Texas from 1971 to 1993 and was the Democratic Party nominee for vice president in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket.
Born in Mission, Texas, Bentsen graduated from the University of Texas School of Law before serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in Europe. After the war, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1948 to 1955. He defeated incumbent Senator Ralph Yarborough in the 1970 Democratic senatorial primary and won the general election against George H. W. Bush. He was reelected in 1976, 1982, and 1988, and served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance from 1987 to 1993. In the Senate, he helped win passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and played a role in the creation of the individual retirement account. Bentsen sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination but was unable to organize an effective national campaign.
Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis chose Bentsen as his running mate in the 1988 presidential election, while the Republicans nominated Vice President George H. W. Bush and Senator Dan Quayle. During the 1988 vice presidential debate, Quayle responded to a question about his purported inexperience by comparing his time in office up to that point to that of John F. Kennedy, leading Bentsen to famously castigate Quayle: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Although Dukakis hoped that the selection of Bentsen would help the Democratic ticket win Texas, the Republican ticket won the state and prevailed by a wide margin in the nationwide electoral and popular vote. Bentsen considered running for president in 1992 but chose not to challenge Bush, who was popular after the Gulf War.
After defeating Bush in 1992, Clinton offered Bentsen the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Bentsen accepted, although he told Clinton that he would not serve a full four-year term in the office. As Treasury Secretary, he helped win the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Bentsen retired in December 1994 and was succeeded by Robert Rubin. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.
Bentsen was born in Mission, Hidalgo County, Texas, to Lloyd Millard Bentsen Sr. (known as "Big Lloyd"), a first-generation Danish-American, and his wife, Edna Ruth (Colbath). The elder Bentsen's parents, Niels Peter and Tena, had come from Denmark to be homesteaders and farmers at Argo Township, near White and Brookings, South Dakota; they experienced many hardships, including loss of their first dwelling and belongings to fire, crop failure, and poor medical care.
Their son started out harvesting and taming mustangs for local farmers, then served in the United States Signal Corps during World War I. He and Edna accompanied his parents on their relocation to the "citrus and vegetable utopia" of Sharyland, Texas, where Peter Bentsen worked as a land agent for Sharyland's founder, John H. Shary, and started a nursery seedling business. Lloyd Sr. and his brother Elmer helped with the family business, investing in land purchase, becoming the "premier colonizers and developers of Hidalgo County", and gaining a substantial fortune from the "Pride O Texas" citrus trademark.
The brothers were directors of the Elsa State Bank; Lloyd Sr. was also a principal at several First National banks, president of the Rio Grande Valley Chamber of Commerce from 1944 to 1946, and played a major role in the unity and development of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy Counties. Both brothers donated land that became the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. Eventually moving out of land development due to some disputes mainly resulting from crop failure due to a severe freeze, Lloyd Sr. invested $7 million in an insurance and financial holding company in Houston, of which his son, Lloyd Jr., was chief executive until running for the U.S. Senate in 1971. In 1959, Texas Governor Allan Shivers appointed Lloyd Sr. major general in the Texas State Guard Reserve Corps. He died after a car accident, aged 95.
At age 15, Lloyd Jr. graduated from Sharyland High School in Mission. He was an Eagle Scout and received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Bentsen graduated from the University of Texas School of Law with an LL.B. degree in 1942 and was admitted to the bar, but joined the military for World War II. (When law schools accredited by the American Bar Association began requiring a bachelor's degree for admission to law school in the 1950s and 1960s, law schools began awarding the Juris Doctor degree rather than the LL.B. As with most law school graduates of his era, Bentsen's LL.B. was reissued to reflect award of the J.D.)
After brief service as a private in intelligence work in Brazil, he trained to be a pilot and in early 1944 began flying combat missions in B-24s from Foggia, Italy, with the 449th Bomb Group. At age 23, he was promoted to major and given command of a squadron of 600 men, overseeing the operations of 15 bombers, their crews, and their maintenance units. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel before being discharged in 1947.
Bentsen flew thirty-five missions against many heavily defended targets, including the Ploiești oil fields in Romania, which were critical to the Nazi war production. The 15th Air Force, which included the 449th Bomb Group, destroyed all petroleum production within its range, eliminating about half of Nazi Germany's sources of fuel. Bentsen's unit also flew against communications centers, aircraft factories and industrial targets in Germany, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Bentsen participated in raids in support of the Anzio campaign and flew missions against targets in preparation for the landing in southern France. He was shot down twice.
Bentsen was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the Air Force's highest commendations for achievement or heroism in flight. In addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bentsen was awarded the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters. Bentsen served in the United States Air Force Reserve from 1950 to 1959, and was promoted to colonel in 1953. (His father, a World War I veteran, served as a major general in the Texas Home Guard during World War II.)
After the war, Bentsen returned to his native Rio Grande Valley. He served the people of his home area from 1946 to 1948, first as Hidalgo County Judge (a largely administrative post as opposed to a judicial one).
First elected in the Truman landslide of 1948, he served three successive terms in the United States House of Representatives. With the South, including Texas, still mostly home to yellow dog Democrats, winning the Democratic nomination was tantamount to election, and Bentsen was unopposed by Republicans in each of his three House campaigns. He became a protégé of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and developed a reputation as an excellent poker player. While serving in Congress at this time, Bentsen was involved in various issues such as those concerning labor and veterans.
A fiscal conservative, Bentsen favored balanced budgets and was not afraid of increasing taxes to achieve them. Consistent with this position, Bentsen was among the most vocal supporters of using increased stimulus spending in order to combat stagflation, believing gains in employment would more effectively reduce the national debt than austerity measures that were being considered by the Ford administration. He balanced liberal positions on taxes and stimulus spending with moderate-to-conservative ones on most social, economic, and foreign policy issues.
Bentsen upset incumbent Ralph Yarborough, a liberal icon, in a bruising primary campaign for the 1970 Texas Democratic Senatorial nomination. The campaign came in the wake of Yarborough's politically hazardous votes in favor of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and his opposition to the Vietnam War. Bentsen made Yarborough's opposition to the war a major issue. His television advertising featured video images of rioting in the streets at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, implying that Yarborough was associated with the rioters. While this strategy was successful in defeating Yarborough, it caused long-term damage to Bentsen's relationship with liberals in his party.