"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. McLennan

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Barbara N. McLennan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-0285-2

Contents

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...