Wilbur Mills

About the Wilbur Mills

Wilbur Daigh Millswas an American Democratic politician who represented Arkansas’s 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1939 until his retirement in 1977. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1958 to 1974, he was often called “the most powerful man in Washington”.

Born in Kensett, Arkansas, Mills began a legal career after attending Harvard Law School. He served as the youngest ever county judge of his native White County, Arkansas, then won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1938, the youngest elected from Arkansas. As the youngest chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mills was the Congressional architect in establishing Medicare. He was also the architect of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, lowering rates on the poor, raising rates on the rich, and creating the alternative minimum tax, as well as a strong advocate for infrastructure projects, especially the Interstate Highway System. Mills’ name was entered in a few states in the 1972 Democratic Party presidential primaries, championing an automatic cost of living adjustment to Social Security, to mixed electoral results in the primaries.

After two public incidents with a stripper named Fanne Foxe, Mills stepped down as Chair of the Ways and Means and checked into the Palm Beach Institute for Alcoholism for three months and he declined to seek re-election in 1976, even though he had received more than 59% of the vote for re-election after the first incident. After leaving office, he returned to the practice of law and helped establish a center for the treatment of alcoholism, the Wilbur D. Mills Center for Alcoholism and Drug Treatment Center, while supporting similar centers around the country in their fundraising efforts.