"Reagan's Mandate-Anecdotes from Inside Washington's Iron Triangle," describes how Washington's Iron Triangle--the combination of Congress, lobbies, and Administration --changed our national government thirty years ago. The book recounts Dr. McLennan's journey, in the 1970s and 1980s, from university professor to minority staff member on the House Budget Committee., to the office of a young Senator, to the Treasury Department to work on tax reform, and to the Commerce Department where as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade Information and Analysis she represented the U.S. to international organizations and supervised the preparation of numerous government publications. The memoir is unique because Dr. McLennan was the only Congressional staff member to work both on Reagan's first budget in the House and his first tax bill in the Senate. These bills passed Congress with strong bipartisan support. In 1984, as the only Congressional staffer to move to the Treasury Department, she participated in the preparation of the study that proposed tax reform. Based on this study, Congress in 1986 reformed the income tax with bipartisan support. All of these events occurred at a time when very few women held senior positions in the U. S. government When Dr. McLennan entered the job market many women didn't work, and most didn't pursue higher education. The only female in many college classes, she became one of very few women in 1965 who earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin. Only small numbers of women then worked as business executives, professors, lawyers, doctors, or senior government officials. "Reagan's Mandate" tells about women's progress in the U.S. job market over the last part of the twentieth century. "Reagan's Mandate" shows how our federal government made decisions when the President set the agenda, Congress passed the laws, and elected political majorities were small and weak. The memoir addresses election year issues of concern to people who care about the day-to-day operations and policy change in our government: budget balancing, taxes, and international trade.
Reagan's Mandate
Anecdotes from Inside Washington's Iron TriangleBy Barbara N. McLennanAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2009 Barbara N. McLennan
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4389-0285-2Contents
Foreword.......................................................................5Preface........................................................................11Part 1. Introduction to the US Congress........................................211. Becoming a Budget Analyst: Getting the Job..................................232. Settling in: Learning to be a Budget Analyst in 1978........................323. Passing the Second Budget Resolution for FY 1979............................434. 1979: Preparing the Budget for Fiscal Year 1980.............................485. The Political Landscape in 1980.............................................696. The Budget Debate of 1980...................................................737. Fall 1980: Law School and the Election Campaign.............................808. Election Returns, 1980......................................................879. The Majority Party and Minority Party Have Changed..........................9210. Reagan Becomes President...................................................9411. Move to the Senate.........................................................108Part 2 Dan Quayle, Ronald Reagan, and Tax Reform...............................1171. Some Personal Perspectives about Political Change...........................1192. The Senator's Office........................................................1213. The Work of a Legislative Assistant to a Senator............................1254. Quayle and the Budget Committee.............................................1305. Dan Quayle's Major Interests................................................1346. The SELF-Tax, Version 1 Compared to Version 2 (S. 1040).....................1427. The Competition: Bradley-Gephardt...........................................146Part 3 Receiving a Law Degree and Move to Treasury.............................1511. A Washington Law Degree: Entering the Iron Triangle.........................1532. Receiving the JD from Georgetown University Law Center......................1583. Washington Lobbies and Law Firms............................................160Part 4 Rewriting the Tax Law...................................................1691. Starting Work for the IRS...................................................1712. Working for the Treasury....................................................1733. Creating the Treasury's Tax Reform Proposal.................................178Part 5 Working for the IRS.....................................................1871. Training for International Tax Analysis.....................................1892. Field Work in the IRS.......................................................1963. The Motorcycle Study: Rewriting International Tax Law.......................2014. Leaving the IRS.............................................................216Part 6 Around the World: From Treasury to Commerce.............................2171. Some Personal Comments About Joining the Government.........................2192. Moving from Treasury to Commerce............................................2213. Arriving at the Commerce Department.........................................2314. Organizing TIA..............................................................2385. Making TIA Work.............................................................2456. TIA: Publications and Presentations.........................................2517. Representing the United States in International Trade.......................2588. The Joint US-Japan Price Survey.............................................2649. Back to Washington..........................................................28610. Last Journeys..............................................................291Epilogue: Seven Lessons I Learned..............................................307
Chapter One
Becoming a Budget Analyst: Getting the job
By January 1978, I knew that I would be leaving Philadelphia and university teaching for Washington. My husband, Ken, had settled on his future job, and we prepared to put our house up for sale. We also started to look around Washington for places to live.
I prepared a document titled "Career Objectives," which I sent to some acquaintances employed by large lobbying organizations. We'd lived in Washington before, and I knew perhaps a half dozen people to contact for leads about possible employment. I stated in this document:
I am currently seeking employment in business or industry, which for me represents a change in my career. I am seeking such a career change for several reasons:
(1) I have already attained the highest position in academia (tenured professorship) and now seek something more challenging;
(2) After twelve years of teaching and research, I would like a position that has more direct and pragmatic responsibilities;
(3) I would like an opportunity to utilize the analytic skills I have developed over the last several years.
Though I'd planned to delay work for a while, I accepted a job interview with Bill Lilley, the director of the Republican House Budget Committee staff. He was a friend of a close friend of ours. Bill sent me a letter, dated March 17, 1978, saying that he was interested in pursuing the job situation and had called me several times, but "to no avail." He asked me to call him the week of March 27. In the past, I'd personally met very few Republicans. Temple's faculty contained few if any Republicans. I was curious; this really was something different. My career was about to change from the world of the university to that of politics and government.
I'd never registered as a Republican, nor ever voted for a Republican. In 1960, I'd been too young to vote for John F. Kennedy, but voted for Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) in 1964. LBJ's ad campaign depicting Republican Barry Goldwater as a maniac who would start a nuclear war frightened me and many other voters. I thought Richard Nixon was bright, but creepy. My opinion of him was based on his TV image: on black-and-white TV his five o'clock shadow showed, his eyes looked shifty, and his general facial expression grim. I never voted for him.
I didn't vote for McGovern in 1972. Though I'd personally met McGovern just a year earlier, when I'd interviewed him for my SRI research project on the War Powers Act, I never could have voted for him. I thought him friendly and decent, but ignorant about foreign affairs and extremely dependent on his staff. He hardly answered any of the questions I asked him without first consulting a young assistant standing behind him. He impressed me as having no leadership abilities at all.
That doesn't explain the whole reason I didn't vote for McGovern. In 1972, we lived in Washington but had to go back to Pennsylvania to vote. On the day before Election Day, a truck ran into the back of my station wagon while I was waiting at a stop sign, knocked my daughter off the back seat where she'd been sleeping, and smashed up the back of the car. We never went back to Philadelphia to vote that year.
At the time of the 1976 presidential election, we lived in Paris. I sent in an absentee ballot, but didn't vote for president. From Paris it was difficult to evaluate the candidates, and I felt I didn't have sufficient information to make a sensible choice. Jimmy Carter won in 1976, and both houses of Congress were dominated by Democrats. The United States had one-party government, and I was about to begin job discussions with the director of the very small House Budget Committee minority staff.
After trading some phone calls with Bill, in May we came to Washington with the children and stayed with friends. I took the opportunity to meet Bill at his office. Tall with dark hair and blue eyes, I looked and felt more like twenty-five than thirty-eight (my real age). I wore a dark, navy blue suit with shoulder pads, a skirt just above the knees, a white silk blouse, hose, and heels (not too high).
Bill's office was located in the Old Congressional Hotel, an annex to the House office-building complex. The building, located near the Capitol South subway station, had once served as a dormitory for congressional pages. It was across the street from the Cannon House Office Building on Independence Avenue, where the Budget Committee met and held hearings. Bill's office was a small room, hardly larger than a cubicle, carved out of what once must have been a dormitory room. He had a window out onto the street with a view of the Capitol. His secretary, who sat in the front part of the room near the hallway, greeted me. Bill wore a shirt and tie, colorful suspenders, and no jacket. A brilliant spring day, light streamed through the window.
Bill Lilley was very excitable and had a quick wit and sharp tongue. He was about my age, or slightly older, and had been a political appointee during the early Nixon administration when my husband had met him. I didn't know anything about his background. Bill was not very tall and of medium weight, had thinning dark hair, and wore glasses. My husband told me that Bill once lost a lot of weight, and he'd managed to keep it off. That showed determination.
Bill was mostly interested in the politics of the Budget Committee. He emphasized that the Budget Committee didn't spend or collect any revenues. It was established in 1974 by an act of Congress, passed by both Houses, and signed into law by the president.
The House and Senate Budget Committees were supposed to help the Appropriations Committees in both houses keep government spending under control. The Budget Committee passed two resolutions every year, which established spending and revenue priorities; it was up to other committees to actually pass legislation that implemented the budget. To assist the Budget Committees, the Budget Act also created the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an agency that would provide technical support and analysis to the committees on budget matters. The year 1978 was a time of economic weakness and high inflation, and the workings of the House Budget Committee were very much in the news.
Bill explained that I was to be the fourth member of the Budget Committee Republican staff. He never asked me if I was a Republican. He was more interested in my skills and that I had the training and experience to write about and analyze policy issues. I mentioned that I was giving up a tenured university position and wondered how "safe" this job was. I'd come from an industry where professors with tenure had lifetime employment. He replied, "You mean you've dropped out of heaven?" He continued that hardly any job could be safer than a minority staff position; the Republican staff was so small that it was inconceivable it could get any smaller.
The 1978 House elected in 1976 held 292 Democrats to 143 Republicans, a majority of 1491. Republicans were a very small minority. Staff was similarly very small, compared to the Democrats. Bill assured me that my opinions would be treated with respect and that I would be included in all significant meetings. I took the job, and my responsibility was analysis of domestic spending programs.
Bill and I agreed on my salary, which was substantially higher than what I received from Temple. On the other hand, I didn't know the precise job title, and the offer he made was contingent on the approval by all of the Republican members of the committee. I asked him to put the offer in writing; he agreed, but asked me to draft this letter so he could later fill in the blanks. The letter he sent:
Dr. Barbara N. McLennan 27 Dunminning Road Newton Square, Pennsylvania
Dear Dr. McLennan:
This letter is to confirm what we discussed during our meeting and our conversations over the past few weeks.
I wish to make you a tentative offer of a position as Budget Analyst on the Minority Party Staff of the House Budget Committee. The salary of this position is $33,000 per annum and you will receive the normal vacation, sick leave, health and pension benefits of Congressional staff personnel.
In this position you work on a variety of assignments and assist the Members of the Minority Party in their work on the Committee. In addition, your skills and experience will be particularly useful in the international affairs, energy and technology areas of the budget.
I hope you will be in a position to begin work July l, 1978 after the tentative offer has been approved by the Minority Party Members. If these arrangements are acceptable to you I will arrange for you to meet the Minority Members during the month of June.
During the remainder of this year and in 1979 our Committee will be working on many extremely important policy problems. I know you will find this work challenging and I hope you will join our staff.
Sincerely, William Lilley III Minority Staff Director
It was May, and the job was to begin on July 1. Most of the Republican members of the committee accepted Bill's recommendation and didn't need me to meet with them. I did have to meet the Republican ranking member (chairman of the minority members), Del Latta of Ohio. Bill warned me that Congressman Latta didn't like to spend the taxpayers' money, and I should be careful about accepting an arrangement with which I couldn't work.
Del Latta was from Bowling Green, Ohio. He was first elected to Congress in 1958, and by 1978 had accumulated substantial seniority. He was frugal and interested in reducing government spending. Because of his seniority and frugality, Republicans elected him ranking member on the Budget Committee.
My interview with Latta went very smoothly. He appreciated my background and academic accomplishments. He was pleased that I'd published. Then he asked me if I could type. The typewriter of the day was the IBM Selectric, an electric typewriter that had self-correction cartridges and cost about $1,000. Latta was being very cagey. There were famous feminist posters at the time of significant women leaders such as Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi. Their official portraits were reproduced with the small caption, "Yes, but can she type?" Latta may have thought he could infuriate me or something, but I'd been forewarned.
I told Latta that though I was not a typist, I expected to have a typewriter so I could do the committee's work. After all, if I didn't, a secretary would have to do it. The Budget Committee minority staff had only one support person, Betty Botts. Betty was married to Herb Botts, who operated the House Gym for the members. Betty was the general receptionist and secretary for the entire minority staff, including the director, and was fully occupied. If the staff didn't do their own typing, Latta would have to hire another person as a typist. Latta said nothing further about typing and approved me for the job.
After the interview with Latta, Bill Lilley had me fill out some papers. They were the usual employment documents filled out by all government employees: basic employment form, security clearance form, health insurance selection, and life insurance selection. The employment document ended with the Congressional Oath of Office, which I was required to sign as a congressional staff member. The oath:
I do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
The same oath was taken by all members of Congress when they began their terms of office. All staff, because they are extensions of the Representatives and Senators, must ascribe to the same oath. For me, the act of signing the document was awesome. I never expected that my work would some day be relevant to defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This oath was meant for adults taking adult responsibility; I was no longer a kid and no longer responsible for the behavior of other kids, like university students. By signing the papers, I'd made a life-changing decision. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Bill then escorted me to the Capitol, to the Office of the Clerk of the House. A man at the reception desk took my documents, looked at me, and asked me if I was the person who'd signed them. When I said yes, I officially became congressional staff, with the title of budget analyst of the House Committee on the Budget.
When I arrived at my office for my first day of work, I found a large, dark, walnut desk with an attachment for an electric typewriter, a bookcase (a sort of credenza that fit on top of the desk), a two-drawer filing cabinet, and an IBM Selectric typewriter. The typewriter was tan, as were the rugs and the filing cabinets. Everything in the room was some shade of brown, and there were no pictures or other wall hangings. This was a sort of historic or infamous room; it was where the tapes of President Nixon discussing the Watergate break-in had been analyzed and an eighteen-minute gap found by technicians in connection with the Watergate trials.
My new office mates also had new typewriters or calculators. Apparently, the staff had been operating with some older equipment. Bill had taken the opportunity of my addition to the group to equip everyone with new machinery.
I'd met some staff people to various committee members, but I'd yet to meet any of the members. On my second day on the job, Congressman Jim Broyhill of North Carolina came over to the Budget Committee offices and walked up two flights of stairs to my office. He introduced himself, addressed me as "Dr. McLennan," shook my hand, and formally welcomed me to the Congress. He'd read my resume and knew I was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He noted that his son-in-law was a Wisconsin graduate. His visit made me feel welcome at the new job.
Chapter Two
Settling in: Learning to be a Budget Analyst in 1978
We asked friends at the beach who lived in the Washington area to recommend areas with good public schools where we could buy a house. We looked at houses in Montgomery County, Maryland, and in Fairfax County, Virginia, and fairly quickly bought a house in Virginia because of lower taxes, and because Fairfax County zoning required that houses have brick or mortar foundations. In Maryland, a wooden house could be wooden all the way down to the ground. We were suspicious of termites, I guess.
Virginia as a state was growing and changing rapidly. V. O. Key, in his widely acclaimed textbook, Southern Politics, in 1949 described Virginia as an elected monarchy. This theory was based on the dominance of Senator Harry F. Byrd, a conservative Democrat, who, elected governor in 1925, dominated the state for the next fifty years. Byrd descended from one of the old families that dominated Virginia since colonial times. Richmond, Virginia, was the capital of the Confederacy. The Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, historically had been weak to nonexistent.
When we moved to Virginia in 1978, the monarchy had finally died when Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr. (son of the old-time Democratic boss) in 1970 decided that he was an Independent and not a Democrat. Throughout the 1970s, leading Democrats in Virginia registered as Republicans. The first Republican governor of Virginia was Linwood Holton, elected in 1974. Mills Godwin, also a Republican, was elected governor in 1978. Mills Godwin had been a Democratic governor of Virginia from 1966 to 1970. Virginia was in the process of shifting from a one-party (Democrat) state, to a two-party state. This was happening statewide and at the local level. This sounded a lot like me.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Reagan's Mandateby Barbara N. McLennan Copyright © 2009 by Barbara N. McLennan. Excerpted by permission.
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