Corker’s impact on Tennessee real estate includes: the investments of his huge firm; a non-profit he founded to make low-income housing loans; and the record $2.4 million he paid in 2000 for his new 30-room, 10,000-square-foot home. As state Finance Commissioner in the mid ‘90s, he sold the legislature on $55 million in state bonds to lure away the Houston Oilers with a new stadium. Corker also promoted a welfare hike to help recipients find jobs and opposed new special-interest loopholes that would erode the tax base. Corker knew whereof he spoke. He was so good at personal income tax gimmicks that he twice dodged the IRS altogether, according to records he released in his ‘94 U.S. Senate bid. Sen. Bill Frist defeated Corker in that nasty primary. The Corker camp branded Frist a cat killer (he got cats from the pound to use as med-school transplant guinea pigs). The Frist campaign called Corker “rotten” “pond scum.”