American politician and educator, a former economics professor. In Congress, Gramm used his economics background to draft bills on curbing federal government spending on social programs in the 1980s. He ran an unsuccessful campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1996. Gramm is a bespectacled, balding man who looks ten years older than his real age. His political detractors believed he never could cut the image of a photogenic president with his cold, cerebral, conservative southern drawl.
Gramm was the youngest of three children in a working poor family. His father Kenneth Marsh Gramm, a career army sergeant suffered a stroke when Phil was five years old. Florence Scoggins Gramm, his mother, supported the family by working two jobs. His father was confined to a wheelchair and died when the boy was 15. Gramm was a wild, rebellious child only interested in playing with his pigeons and dogs. He was held back twice in grade school. At 15, after joyriding in his mother’s car, Gramm’s mother used her husband’s life insurance money to send her rebel son to Woodward Military Academy in College Park, Georgia. He thrived in the military environment and buckled down to his books. Gramm enrolled at the University of Georgia in Athens and earned his undergraduate degree in 1964 and Ph.D. in Economics in 1967.
Upon graduation, Gramm taught economics at Texas A&M University in 1967. In 1973, he became a full professor and ran a consulting firm for government and private industry. Gramm became an active member in the Texas Democratic Party politics. His family considered themselves Boll Weevil Democrats, traditional Democrats with more conservative social views than Democrats from the Yankee Northeast. In 1976, Gramm lost a Democratic senatorial primary against Lloyd Bentsen. His defeat did not stop him from seeking elected office. In November 1978, he won the 6th Congressional District seat and became a freshman member of the 1979 U.S. House of Representatives.
While Rep. Gramm was more conservative than his fellow Democrats, he began to make a name for himself by aligning with the capital’s fiscal conservatives. His rhetoric to reverse the trend of big government power was more in step with President Reagan and the Republican Party. He sponsored the successful 1981 Gramm-Latta budget-cutting bill to reduce the social responsibilities of the federal government and build up the national defense arsenal without raising taxes. He won his congressional seat victories in 1980, 1982, and in 1983 he became a Republican Party member. In 1985, he sponsored the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget balancing amendment. He had written many articles on free-market solutions to economic and energy problems. His campaign funds are heavily contributed by the gas and oil companies of Texas. On 2/24/1995 at 10:00 AM in College Station, TX, Senator Gramm declared his candidacy for the 1996 presidential elections. Senator Robert Dole became the Republican candidate for the elections.
Gramm married his first wife, Sherry Kinney, a fellow Georgia classmate, in 1963. He divorced amicably in 1969 and later became the godfather of his first wife’s child. After his divorce, he met Korean Wendy Lee, a Ph.D. professor in economics. Properly smitten, they married on 11/02/1970. The Gramm’s have two sons and attend the Episcopal Church. Gramm’s wife works for the Office of Management and Budget in the nation’s capital. They own a house near Texas A&M University in College Station, TX.
A controversial figure in Washington politics, Gramm does not seek approval from Washington colleagues. He likes to boast his professional knowledge of economics and his self-confidence has not won him many friends from either political parties. He alienates others by his argumentative and abrasive lecturing style. Gramm enjoys promoting himself and his conservative views with evangelical fervor. He thinks of himself as the southern political descendent of Thomas Jefferson. In his office, Senator Gramm displays a picture of Texan politician, Lyndon Baines Johnson. He intends to spend his political career dismantling the LBJ legacy of government social responsibility. Senator Paul Simon, former senator of Illinois says of his colleague, “Diplomacy is not his strength but intelligence and hard work make up for it.”
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