Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 444 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There ( part 25) Mr. Chairman!! The Finance Committee Chair

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Episode 444 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There ( part 25) Mr. Chairman!! The Finance Committee Chair · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: I was just a great committee, and uh I never of course dreamed I'd be chairman of the committee.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: Neither did Russell Long.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's the last thing he thought of.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: But uh in fact I you know the story when I the first vote we had after I became chairman, when I said Mr.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Chairman, he voted.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: He forgot he'd forgotten I'd taken over.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: But he said I not only vote for my charmer or something like that, I vote with my chairman, I think.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: But he had a good comeback.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_10: This is our first in a series of uh episodes that are gonna look at the time when the Republicans finally won the United States Senate under Ronald Reagan, as Reagan came in in the Reagan landslide, and Bob Dole will suddenly be the chairman of the Finance Committee.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_10: And so this is that story.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_10: It's taking the majority in the Senate, uh, and and then we're gonna look at the finance committee itself, what a plum assignment it was to be there, how staffing was set up on the committee.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_10: Here's some stories about the previous chairman Russell Long, and then the 1981 tax bill and TEFRA, which was the kind of correction for the 81 tax bill.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_10: Uh all of this in the backdrop of the continuing recession, because people do forget that Ronald Reagan's first two years, the recession deepened that he inherited, and the big boom for which we think of Ronald Reagan being a part of comes later on.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_10: And uh this is Bob Dole's role in that story, and it's quite a significant one.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_14: It is.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_14: It's really a remarkable transformation.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_14: And Republicans had a big problem with that in the Senate because they hadn't been in the majority since 1954 or 56.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_14: There was not a single person in the Republican caucus in the Senate who'd ever been a committee chairman at that time, except Strom Thurman, who was a Democrat at the time.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_14: And uh so it was a brand new experience, a learning experience.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_14: There's a high level of cooperation between members.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_14: But the sudden realization that not only are we in the majority, but we're responsible for the agenda, the timing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_14: We can focus on what the country, at least the Senate, will be concerned about, and just as important what they won't, what we're not gonna do.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_14: And that's a that's a that's a big issue, a big deal.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_14: And uh for a while they said, well, the president will do that.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_14: But clearly, after a little while, a matter of weeks, it was clear that the Republican Senate, the majority in the Senate, had, if not an equal role with the president, even a due president, but uh significant role in setting the national agenda.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_14: I remember in in 60, I mean, and uh uh at the time we first gained the majority, 81, even at 82, that uh I I think that things were different.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_14: We we thought of ourselves as equal partners with the White House.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_14: And uh we asserted those views.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_14: And we would uh visit with the president, the leadership would, and uh and we would invite the vice president up to policy elections on Tuesday.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_14: And uh maybe it's just uh maybe it's just the nostalgia of retrospection, but it seems to me that there was a better understanding of the interrelationship between those two branches at that time than had existed for a long time, maybe ever.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_14: And it worked very, very well, but it had a sobering effect on Republicans in the majority because they suddenly realized this is our game.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_14: We we we we get to run the show and we have to decide what to do or what not to do, and uh we're gonna be responsible for it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_07: Now, what you say though suggests that that kind of relationship could only have worked because you had a president who was willing to buy into that kind of that's also true.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_14: That's right.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_14: It and maybe it would not have worked with anybody except Ronald Reagan.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_07: What was it about Reagan that made it work?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_14: I don't know, except that uh he never looked down on the Congress.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_14: He never ignored the Senate.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_14: He was always willing and then it seemed to be anxious to hear what they had to say.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_14: And uh it it was a remarkable relationship.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could not dislike Ronald Reagan.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of his great strengths, and I also and he's the president I dealt with more than anybody else, because I was chairman of the Commerce Committee for the first four years of the administration, and in that area we deregulated a great many industries, and then I was chairman of finance for two years when we did the tax reform bill in 1986.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I dealt with him more than any other president.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've come to the conclusion that he understood the presidency better than anybody else.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he regarded the function of the presidency to was to inspire the country.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you hire people to run the government.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so you get you get some bad eggs on occasion.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: But he was never the detail man that Jimmy Carter was, or almost any other, or Bill Clinton, who I dealt a little bit with, or anybody else you've ever seen.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you go to these meetings in the in the uh cabinet room leadership meetings, and I was in the leadership all during that time, either as a committee chairman or chairman of the senatorial campaign or the Republican conference or something like that.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you go to these meetings.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure the president is saying, why do we have to have these meetings?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And his aida is saying, because the members of Congress want to be included and they want to be able to say that they've advised you and you've got to.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's just useless.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm sure every president must think that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the meeting will start out, you go and you all have your assigned table about this size, and you all have your assigned place when you go in.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's a name tag.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the president comes in after you're all there, and we all stand up and he goes around and shakes hands.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now this meeting is going to last an hour.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: He goes around, he shakes hands and comments.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: That takes maybe five or six minutes.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then he sits down, he sits right in the center, just like you see the pictures of the President Bush.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually has a three by five cards.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Now, the things I'd like to talk about today, and he goes through and just kind of reads them.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that takes him five or six minutes.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say it's now a bipartisan meeting.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got Tip O'Neill and whoever the number two person for the Democrats was at the time over there, and then you have Bob Michael, the Republican leader in the House and his number two.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then you had the Senate leaders and their numbers.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: So now you've got eight people.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the President said, Tip, do you have anything to say?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And Tip would say something, and then he turned to Bob Michael.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Bob, do you have anything to say?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Hell, by the time these eight had finished saying something, there's not 15 minutes left in this 45-minute meeting.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And and the President said, Any other c any other comments or questions?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there might be one or two.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And one time Jack Camp asked him a very good question.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Jack, that is a very, very astute question.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I see Jim Baker here, and I'm gonna ask Jim to answer that question.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And by this time, the meeting's over.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we all go out, and you know, the press is out there.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: How was the meeting?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna say?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Waste of time, waste of his time, waste of our time?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a very significant meeting.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think he really, you know.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he understood that's what the function of this meeting was.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and he was he was such a personable guy, you could not dislike him.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_14: And and and r the Republican leadership, uh, and Dole was as chair of the finance committee involved in these things.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_14: Uh, Ted Stevens, me, Dole, one or two other Hat Field, would meet regularly at the White House at the president's invitation.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_14: And uh we'd talk frankly about uh the agenda.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_14: And I also seem to recall that the candor between the congressional types and the White House was remarkable.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_14: And I wonder if that's still so.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_14: But it certainly was so with Reagan, and it may be that Reagan's personality made that possible or practical.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_07: Was he underestimated?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_07: Including by some on his own side.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yes.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that he he was driven by lower rates.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if he had anything of all the things, whether it's the evil empire, what drove him was lower rates.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: At his zenith in Hollywood, the top rate was 91%.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he had an accountant.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think he must have paid 91% on his whatever his last hundred thousand dollars of income was.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So from that time on he was driven by lower rates.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: When he came in, the rate was the top rate was 70 percent.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: We cut it to 50.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 1986, we cut it to 28.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: But in 1986, he may or may not have been a supply cider, but his insistence in the 1986 tax bill is that it had to be revenue neutral.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the only way you could get there would be by closing billions of dollars of loopholes.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he never wavered.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't a question of his telling us how to get there.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: His goal was lower rates.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you figure out how to get there.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: As long as you get to lower rates, he I won't say I don't care how you get there.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_14: At some point in this interview, I want to tell you a true story about uh the Republicans getting control of the Senate.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_14: And uh that was in 1980.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_14: Right.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_14: And I was minority leader, about to be majority leader, and we were all full of enthusiasm.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_14: And uh late at night, as the results came in, I called Bob, who was in Kansas.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_14: I don't remember where in Kansas, but he was.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_14: I said, Bob, just think.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_14: We've got the majority.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_14: You're going to be chairman of the finance committee.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_14: And Dole thought for a minute, he said, Well, who's going to tell Russell Lowe?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_14: And there were days when I thought nobody told Russell Lowe.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_04: How did Wong run his committee?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: Oh boy.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and and the relationship of Dole and how that evolved or what the uh I'll never forget the uh Dole being called by Howard Baker and told that um he was gonna be the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Dole's reaction was, you know, well, who's gonna tell Russell?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and when the vote occurred in the committee, uh, and they called Mr.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Chairman long voted, and um sort of said, you know, not only am I voting, you know, for my chairman, you know, I was sort of a it was sort of a I'm voting for my chairman.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think their relationship was quite good, I think, because they were both um consummate politicians, uh, but at the end of the day, they were also consummate legislators.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were both people who you would present them with an issue, and the the the question was, how did you resolve the question?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not how can we p pit ourselves against one another?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_07: What do you sense about the dole uh long relationship?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_07: There's the famous story the dole tells after the 80 uh election.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_07: But I mean, up until that point when Republicans were in the minority, I mean, how did they how did they work together?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And how did the Venezuela as I recall, Bob did not become ranking member till 79, didn't he?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't Carl Curtis uh so in that sense, at least Russell didn't have to deal with him as the ranking member until the last two years.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: But Russell got along with everybody.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: He ran of course in those days no sunshine law, everything was run in secret.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: It still is, as a matter of fact, even with sunshine laws.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: You meet in the back room, you don't you don't have votes that count, you just have votes that count.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go out and have a formal vote.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: But uh Russell, I I found, got along with everybody.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I I don't know what the special relationship may have been between the two of them.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, Long was unbelievably wily, you know, and you always worried when Long came up to your boss and put his arm around his neck and whispered in his ear because you never really knew what was gonna happen.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and that was Long's style.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, i I'm trying to remember now the sort of quote.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was something about um, you know, never um never call uh I'm now forgetting what the quote is, but it's it is um uh you know, sort of never, you know, talk when you can whisper, never whisper when you can wink.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the sort of you know, sort of very personal connection.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, similarly with Moynihan, uh enormous respect for one another as legislators.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: The same with George Mitchell, both at the Finance Committee as well as uh as leader.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, these were people, uh Robert C.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Byrd, another one who they had enormous respect for each other.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because at the end of the day, they were interested in solving problems.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_07: Now, was Russell Long chairman throughout until the Republicans took over, yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_07: And and how did Long run the committee?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_07: I assume he ran the committee.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: He ran the funniest guy.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_07: Did he ever talk about his dad, by the way?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I talked to him very briefly once about his dad.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And because Richard Russell, before he had died, had said to me he said that Huey Long was the smartest man he ever met.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that Russell was not half a step behind.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And Russell would cover it with sort of a buffooneries uh but he was no buffoon, this was an act.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, here's a here's a typical guy.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: He would never, never, never, never go on those Sunday morning talk shows.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is he was an insider.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: It would not go on those shows.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the committee, when I first went on it, the senior Republican was Wally Bennett of Utah, the father of the current Senator Bennett.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: There was no partisan staff.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nor did he did Senator Bennett want a partisan staff.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was it was a very small staff.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there was half a dozen professionals altogether for all the subjects they had.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And of necessity, therefore, because Russell insisted that the majority staff, the staff serve everybody.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if a minority member wanted something and the staff didn't get it, Russell would would raise hell.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: That the you're you're not the Democratic staff, you're everybody.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: When when uh I was working with President Nixon on a bill that he was going to introduce that was mandated health coverage, employer mandated health coverage.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was carrying the bill for him in the Senate and working on it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the two of the professionals on the committee were detailed by Russell Long to work with me in for an extensive amount of time and period on drafting this bill because for two reasons.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: One w Russell wanted to make sure that we got served, too.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure it was drafted in a way that the Finance Committee got the bill.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want this thing slipping over to some other committee.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you had you have to be careful.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you got a bill that covers a number of things, the parliamentarian will send it to the committee that has the most uh in it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_07: Now that's a you what is the role of the parliamentarian?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Very in those days, it was Dr.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Riddick, and it was very powerful.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you you did not challenge his rulings.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was scrupulously nonpartisan.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It it is very powerful.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I sense as we're going along, though, you're gonna start to see more and more challenging of the ruling of the chair.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the parliamentarian will say uh whisper that the motions out of order, and the the presiding officer will chair rules the motions about order, and some I appeal the ruling of the chair.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: You got fifty-one votes and you overturned the chair, but you've now set a precedent in this which the Senate is very wary of precedents.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_06: Did by the way, did Russell, did he talk about it, Power?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh talk about Julie or uh he uh yes, and uh sometimes at the most inopportune times.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean he would tell some, you know, some story, or you know, as you know, as uh actually it wasn't specific to his uncle, but I'll never recall we were in the middle of some welfare reform uh matter, some issue having to deal with uh low-income assistants.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he started talking at length about how he couldn't hire anybody to clean his windows.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, what you know, what's wrong with being, you know, and you just kind of wanted to think, oh my, you know, well yeah, I'm prepared to pay him, you know, four bucks an hour.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's one, you know, you just go, oh my God.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but yes, he would slip into stories occasionally.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were always quite humorous.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: But uh but the point is that the the conversations that occur behind closed doors um are so remarkable and so personal.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very different than standing in front of a room of however many people and saying what you need to say and moving on, because you're not gonna face them the next day.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_07: How did, by the way, how did Dole and Russell, now that the roles were reversed, how did Dole and Russell Long work together?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: He always very wisely treated Russell practically as if Russell was still chairman, and that was a very smart thing to do.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: That suggests that the perks didn't matter.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, the the you know, the trappings of of his new power.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, but um in that sense, Bob uh Bob cared much more about real power than the trappings of power.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Which probably makes you all the more powerful.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: We won't express our appreciation to you.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: We should express our appreciation to you for making my party.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_15: I want to say, Mr.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_15: President, and I told uh Senator Long that uh when this uh invitation was presented to the White House, I think the staff felt that well, it probably wasn't worth it, but uh the president probably couldn't stay for dinner and probably wouldn't be able to come.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_15: That was conveyed to the president, he decided otherwise, and we're particularly honored that you're here because he said, I want to go.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_15: And he's here, and it's my honor to present the president of the United States.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_13: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_13: One of the things I've been trying to figure out is why anyone as young as Russell Long would want to retire.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_13: Of course, that's only a cue for a story I want to tell you because you know, in my position anymore, that I have to be very careful of whether there's any ethnic note to any jokes that I tell.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_13: But I find that I can still tell jokes about people getting old.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_13: They know I'm not picking on anyone.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_13: Well, this doesn't have any bearing on his being too young to retire, but it is a story about an elderly couple who were getting ready for bed one night, and she said, Oh, I just am so hungry for ice cream and there isn't any in the house.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_13: And he said, I'll get some.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_13: Oh, she said, You're a deer.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_13: She said, Vanilla with chocolate sauce.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_13: He said, Vanilla with chocolate sauce, she said, write it down now.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_13: You'll forget, dear.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_13: He said, I won't forget.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_13: She said, some whipped cream on top.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_13: He said, vanilla with chocolate sauce, whipped cream on top, and she said, Ma cherry.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_13: And he said, Natcherry on top.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_13: Oh, she said, please write it down.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_13: I know you'll forget.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_13: He said, I won't forget.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_13: Vanilla with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on top, and away he went.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_13: By the time he got back, she was already in bed.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_13: He handed her the paper bag.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_13: She opened it, and there was a ham sandwich.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_13: And she said, I told you to write it down.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_13: You forgot the mustard.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_13: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted that I could be here tonight to salute one of the most important presences in the United States Senate for yes over 36 years.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_13: And before you won't have dinner because uh no one can well, maybe I'm taking some material away from some others.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_13: But the simple facts about Russell Long are that he's the son of an American political legend.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_13: He ran a celebrated campaign for student body president of Louisiana State University.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_13: He earned four battle stars in his country service in World War II, was elected in 1948 to the United States Senate, and that was the day before he turned 30, and he became one of the most powerful Senate in that body's history, including a committee chairmanship and a leadership post.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_13: Now these are the simple facts, but you know, in a curious way they don't really tell the whole story.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_13: You see, for those who really know Washington well, Russell Long is regarded as one of the most skillful legislators, compromisers, and legislative strategists in history.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_13: Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, many others who knew the Congress intimately fully appreciated the enormous weight and power that Russell Long wielded on Capitol Hill.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_13: And the tremendous value that he brought to any legislative enterprise.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_13: For example, Senator Long is famed for his capacity to anticipate the truly critical moments in the legislative process.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_13: He was the one legislator who had his mind on the conference, one observer observed noted, when the others were worrying about the floor debate.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_13: Indeed, it's true that this son of a political legend has become a legend on his own.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_13: Russell Long is not one of the truly important senators of our time simply because he's a skillful statesman or was a fine political mind, he also has a great capacity for personal friendship and a warmth and candor that has won him many friends.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_13: For example, and I shouldn't be telling this until after the session is over here.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_13: He used to ask, and I'm quoting him, what is a loophole?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_13: And he answered, that's something that benefits the other guy.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_13: If it benefits you, it's tax reform.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_13: But to be serious, we're not here this evening simply because Russell Long was and is a distinguished and important United States Senator.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_13: We're here tonight because Russell Long, throughout one of the longest and most substantive careers in public life, has been a friend of ours, a friend of his country and of the American people.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_13: Russell, I assure you that I speak not only for your friends on Capitol Hill, but for the people of Louisiana and for the American people who say thank you for your devotion to duty, for the years of service to your country.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_13: You won four battle stars making amphibious landings in North Africa, Italy, and southern France.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_13: And if the truth be known, you won many more battle stars in your country's service on Capitol Hill.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_13: I want you to know how grateful we are to you.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_13: Carolyn, I especially want to thank you for your years of devotion to your family and your country.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_13: Thank you all.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very personal matter.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, people knew they could do deal with the boss and know that he would hold to his word and that he wasn't going to say things glibly and then come back and say, you know, we'll tell him I lied.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's sort of a famous Rox Blanc story about the chicken in every pot, you know, we'll tell him I lied kind of thing at the end of the at the end of the thing.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was this Uncle Earl who said it.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, what about that chicken in every pot?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell him I lied.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_14: But Bob moved right into the role of chairman of one of the prime committees of the Senate and did so with ease and did so effectively.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_07: Well, yes, because that does raise this question.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, I've heard him talk about the difference between when you're in the minority, you you can sort of govern by press release.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_07: You know, and then all of a sudden you realize you're responsible.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_07: That's right.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_07: You gotta govern.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_07: Tell us what the Finance Committee did in those days.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_11: Well, subject matter is the very same thing they do today.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_11: Uh all tax issues, all trade issues, uh Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, uh, uh unemployment compensation, uh, let's see, uh jurisdiction over IRS, HHS, uh sum of commerce, all of treasury.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_11: Uh in those days, uh tax issues were very important.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_11: Uh cutting the marginal tax rate, uh, indexing the tax code, which is or the income tax rates are indexed now for so you don't have uh inflation uh impact, uh wage inflation impact, uh phantom taxation, I guess you call it, you know.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_11: Uh trade was was significant from the standpoint of being 30 years into the free trade regime of the General Griefman of Tariffs and Trades, now called the World Trade Organization, a lot of trade issues.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_11: Not so much.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_11: Uh Medicare, Medicaid, an awful lot to do, though.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_07: Tell me about the Finance Committee and its centrality uh in these years in terms of uh public policy.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: It it was, of course, everybody thinks their committee is the most important committee.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I got on it, I thought so too, even though I was chairman of the Commerce Committee for a while.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Before I was chairman of finance.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, was finance regarded as a plumb assignment?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there was there was the big four, really big three finance appropriations, foreign relations.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Armed services, at that time, people were poo-pooing armed services.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Bill Saxby was another of our freshmen, by the way, from Ohio.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_07: Sure.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_07: Who had some unkind things to say about uh Bob Dole, remember?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_07: I'm surprised, all right?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_07: Well, he he was the one who who was credited with the line that um Dole couldn't sell beer on a troop ship.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or was it ass on a troop ship?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_07: Well that's interesting because it's like the kind of line with a it's not worth a picture of warm spit.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_07: But but that's that's the line that got printed anyway.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_07: Tell me about the importance of the finance committee.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_12: Well, the finance committee uh essentially will tell the rest of us you can make all kinds of sounds about spending a half a billion dollars for this.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_12: But if you don't have the money, you're not gonna spend it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_12: In that sense you have to be very careful.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_12: And furthermore, politically, the finance committee can be one of the most sensitive areas.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_12: Taxes and health issues are too Medicare, Medicare, Medicare, and so politically that committee can make or break candidates.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_07: Is it a palm assignment to be on the finance committee or something to be run away from?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_12: Um most people seek the finance committee.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_12: But not because they are CPAs but because they're politicians.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_12: What I'm trying to say is that maybe we should get a better balance of a good number of CPAs and a good number of politicians.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_07: Were you on the finance committee from the beginning of your career?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, I went on uh in 1973 after I've been there four years.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, in those days, and here's a change, you went on on straight seniority.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: There was no deviation.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: There is no this exception, and the leader gets to appoint somebody.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is why Vojnovich can never get on the finance committee.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because every every time there's a new Congress, the leader gets to appoint either one or two, I can't remember.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: McConnell hates Voinovich.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: So unless there's enough spots open that after the leader has made his appointment, uh Voidovich can get on as the senior person wanting it.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that in those days it was straight seniority.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Finance was a was a real plum.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was a plum.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I said armed services for a while it was not a plumb.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And when we went around on seniority and everybody picked the committees they wanted, there were still two spots on armed services.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: We want to know if he went on or could he have two votes.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, finance and appropriations were the plums.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Foreign relations, if that if that was your interest, but if you meant the other two.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it has become infinitely more powerful.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Gordon Smith, one of the current senators, could have gone on appropriations or finance two years ago, and he chose finance.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason is even in those days, it had jurisdiction over taxes and over trade and and social security.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: But also, just a few years earlier, we had added added Medicare and Medicaid to its jurisdiction.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in 1973, those had not those two had not become over blooming issues yet.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: The costs were vastly underestimated, and we were just into it.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: But as the years went on, it got tougher and tougher and tougher to nobody would leave.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: It got tougher and tougher to get onto it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and now today, when you when you add Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to it, let alone taxes and trade.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_07: There's a theory that he the so-called new Bob Dole in 1980, Republicans take the Senate, and all of a sudden he finds himself a committee chairman.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_07: And basically he decides either, you know, you can no longer govern by press release.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_07: You you have to be responsible.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_07: And he had an opportunity to demonstrate what he could do.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, do you think that's a significant journey point?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_12: I mean, having been in the majority and in the minority, is it uh it is for some it could be a traumatic experience because suddenly, uh oh I'm it makes a difference.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_12: Yeah.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_14: Uh I had a meeting called the Committee of Chairmen in the Leader's Office, that I over which I presided.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_14: All the chairmen of the standing committees came.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_14: And then we invited one freshman at each meeting who hopefully just sat there.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_14: But anyway, uh that was an extraordinarily important thing to me because it was an opportunity for chairmen to say what they had on their plate, what they wanted to do, and to bid an effect for time on the Senate schedule.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_14: But that's where I got insights into what was going on and what might go on, and that's where I first came to have such a high regard for Bob Dole's ability as chair of that committee.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_14: It's his his his analysis was good, but maybe even just as important, his presentation was lucid and prompt, and it worked out well.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_10: The key to some of that, um how lucid and prompt and um coherent Bob Dole's strategies were or and his uh ideas were was because he believed in putting together a very strong staff.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_10: And that can't be underestimated in any level of government, how important it is to have a good staff uh helping you.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_10: And I thought we would listen a little bit to uh Bob Dole talk about putting together that staff and then Sheila Burke, his chief of staff, talking about the work that she did putting together the staff, um, and how she even started with Bob Dole.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_10: Uh because she actually was on the Senate Finance Committee staff first.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, let's talk a little bit about how your paths originally crossed with Bob Dole.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was working in New York City uh uh for a nursing association and working as a nurse.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in the course of that, it was a student association, began to spend time in Washington doing government affairs, student loan issues, uh nursing student program.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in the course of that came to know people at the Senate Finance Committee.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, that was over a couple of years period of time, and I had made a decision at that point to go back home to California and was beginning to think about that transition out of New York.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the staff in the finance committee said to me, you know, how about Washington and how about Bob Dole?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's looking for someone to do health issues for him.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: At the time he was a relatively junior member of the Senate Finance Committee.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Was this before 76?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: This was no, this was in 1977.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a national reputation.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: He had a national reputation, but not one particularly on the Hill per se, and not one in health policy at all.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he was going to become and was uh the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, health subcommittee.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Herman Talmudge was the chairman.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the uh committee had only recently developed a partisan or uh staff that was divided between Democrats and Republicans.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: It had really until quite recently, prior to that time, been a single staff.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the Republicans had decided that they needed an independent staff and began to do so.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the Democrats had on their staff a physician.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And health policy was becoming a big issue.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was during Carter's term of office.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hospital cost containment was a major issue, cost controls.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Dole made a decision he wanted someone on the staff to be actively involved in health issues.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so the finance committee staff member suggested that he interview me, suggested to me I interview with Bob Dole.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: I, of course, had no idea who Bob Dole was to any extent at all.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was a you know liberal Democrat, born and raised in California, and uh no exposure really to the Midwest, and certainly not to Republican politics or to Bob Dole.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_07: But obviously you know, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know him know of him.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some baggage from that campaign?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it wasn't I wasn't terribly involved.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I like everyone else, I voted, but you know, I didn't follow it terribly closely.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't really active politically, except in healthcare issues, you know, not as a uh partisan pol uh political matter.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh interestingly enough, I said, well, it'll be interesting.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I came down for an interview with Dole.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: I will never forget it.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I uh it was in his office uh in the Dirksen building, uh, and it was relatively dark.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: The room was relatively dark, uh, and he was um, you know, matter of fact, you know, relatively short, uh, as he's wont to do, uh, certainly at that point in time.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we sort of talked back and forth.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was a relatively short conversation, and I said, you know, I'm a liberal Democrat, uh, you know, sort of born and raised.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll never forget at the time his comment was, you know, I really don't care what your politics were as much as I care about the fact you've taken care of patients and you've had direct contact, and I think we need people looking at health issues who have had that kind of experience.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really on that basis I thought it would be an interesting thing to do for a year.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he made a decision that, you know, he spoke with some other people, the Finance Committee staff, and uh Ken Benjamin, who was on his staff at the time and handling some of the health issues.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke with Ken, Ken had spoken to me as well.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Wheat, who was also a member of his staff at the time, who was handling health issues and doing legislative correspondence and things of that nature, and made a decision that, you know, I would be interesting, and I made a decision that it would be an interesting to do for a year.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_07: Now, how did the finance committee staff at that point relate to the personal staff?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was always uh a bit of a and uh and always was, never changed.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um the personal staff was personal staff, and the committee were the committee.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a clear division and there was a loyalty tests of well interesting.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um the um the finance committee is unusual in the fact that the committee staff answer solely to the chairman and to the ranking in this case, and the the members of the committee had no hiring rights.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: So Dole, even as a subcommittee ranking, had no authority to hire on the finance committee staff.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: His staff were simply uh personal staff, and we had to figure out a way to work with the committee to achieve whatever the, you know, in my case, Bob Dole wanted to get done.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the the staff answered to at that time Carl Curtis and Herman Talmadge and or Russell Long, who was the full chairman.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the staffs of the uh committee really, you know, saw themselves answering up.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in constant negotiations with Dave Swope, who was the Republican staff member at the time on the committee, uh, as Dole's representative.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it was it's always been a tenuous relationship and somewhat tension-filled because you want to represent your particular boss, and the staff of the committee represented the committee.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was my earliest introduction to negotiation uh uh on the part of uh an individual member in concert with the committee.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so, you know, that's always been an interesting relationship.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was lucky, I knew the majority staff very well.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jim Mongan, Jay Constantine, John Kern, Bob Hoyer, all were Democratic staff members who had introduced me to Dole and who were enormously important in the doings of the committee.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I suspect they cut me a lot of slack and helped me help Dole to uh to move, you know, as part of the committee.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dave Swope was the Republican staff member.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and again there was this tension between what the committee wanted and what the members wanted.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: So did you graduate?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as Dole when Dole moved up the ladder and became chairman?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, what what was interesting was within six months uh an unusual thing occurred.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dole was relatively junior.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: There were at least two people ahead of him, uh Mike uh let's see, Cliff Hansen and Carl Curtis, both of whom made a decision to retire.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what moved Dole up to become the ranking of the full committee at the time, uh, much to everyone's surprise.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was no reason to think that you know they wouldn't have been there for a long time and that Dole wouldn't have been a junior member for a long time.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they both retired.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't recall who else was sort of in the lineup at the time, but Dole was the next one in line who didn't already have a ranking position.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he moved up in that following January.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: I joined the staff, the Memorial Day weekend of 1977.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in January of 78, Dole became In the ranking.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in the fall, therefore, of 77, he began to build a staff and made a decision to hire Bob Leitheiser as the staff director, uh Bob Dearment as the deputy.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: They in turn then began interviewing to hire, and I interviewed to hire to go to the full committee.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_07: Very.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_07: How did Dole find them?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting question.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the I know the answer to that question.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were both at Covington and Burling, both young lawyers, um uh both with individual expertise, Bob's in trade, uh Rod's in law, uh or in tax, rather.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh Bob also, I mean, had a fairly broad perspective.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know who it is that that would be an interesting question to ask Bob and Rod, how they got to Dole, because I don't think either of them had any history with Dole.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: But Dole clearly wanted a strong staff.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_07: How did you find people like that?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: I actually found Lighthouser through Elizabeth.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: She knew somebody who knew of him in front of hers in Kansas City.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: And Sheila, I'm not sure how she came to me.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: That was the best move I made because she then once she got on board and she'd start saying, Well, you gotta look at this person or this person or this person.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_06: But now she came from a different area of the political spectrum.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, they accused her of voting for McGovern and all this stuff.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Well, I don't I wouldn't in this I wasn't in the booth with her.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how she voted.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: But even in 96 people, I you can't trust this guy, you hired this woman who voted for McGovern.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, some of these people just can't please.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that she might have been pro-choice.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Well, I I've never heard her say I I don't ask all my employees what all their views are.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_03: So but she did a good job, and first she was the first uh female chief of staff or a majority leader.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: Joanne Coe was the first woman secretary of the Senate.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: Ernie Garcia was the first Latino sergeant at arms.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we were reaching out to people.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_07: And what do you do?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_07: I it's no matter I'm not interesting names, but over the years there must have been people who disappointed you.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, staff who for whatever reason.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, is it have you ever fired someone?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well that was it, Reagan never could fire anybody.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think I I've had the same problem.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_03: A couple of them I should have fired, but I always got somebody else to do it.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: Stanley, somebody who wrote a book from San Francisco, who claimed to be my confidant.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: He he drove me around in a car, you know, and and he did a little work on the Senate committee, but what's called Senator for Sale.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't sell many, I might might add.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't know what I ever did to him.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I as far as I know, I didn't uh do anything to him.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: But uh you know, some people see an opportunity of the guy's running for president by sell a few books.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: I see Kathleen Willie's got one coming out on Clinton next this November.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, people are what's it called?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_03: Free Enterprise?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: I guess.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I not very many.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I mean uh you know, I had good people like Terry Tim Chuck, people, you know, people that you know you know them all.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: And they're I mean, the basic qualities that you're looking for.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously Sheila Barry was not head of the FDI, FDIC.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Kansas uh from Kansas and uh Yeah, that's somebody that I could talk.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't worry about it they were if they were smarter than me, that was a good thing.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like Light Eyes are in the arming on taxes.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they understood that stuff.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: I had to call Rod the other day trying to think of what we did in '83.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't remember what happened.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: But he's still he's he still knows it.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, you know, he said, I'm 59 now, I'm getting up there.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_03: But uh I think, you know, there are a few staff people kind of let you down sometimes, but one thing about the Senate is it's not 24-7, but it's long hours.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: You get quite a few little breaks, but particularly the staff, if you're in the leadership, you know, you your staff doesn't get much, whether you're George Mitchell or Bob Dole.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_03: Long before you were the leader, you were working Saturdays.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_03: I was better.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_07: You you were working Saturdays long before you were in the leadership.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I just that's when I made a lot of phone calls on the Saturdays back home.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: I always called my mother on Saturday.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: But uh We didn't make everybody work, I think we rotated.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I always told them they get off Sunday.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I must say, in retrospect, not in my interest, but Dole was known for, and I think to this day, known for having one of the strongest finance committee staffs.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was the quality of that leadership, the decision on Bob, the decision on Rod, and they in turn then hired up.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um much of that do you think was influenced by the assumption, which I assume was there, that he was interested in writing in 1980?
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: I suspect it had a lot to do with that.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he wanted to begin to build a very fulsome policy staff, and there was no question that those issues were going to be issues that were critical.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, his decision to be on the finance committee, um, in addition to ag, I mean, ag would have been natural uh given his constituency.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: But finance is one of the big committees, and it's a big committee for a lot of reasons, and it had to do with trade, it had to do with tax, it had to do with social welfare policy.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was one of the plums in terms of broader perspective.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think the quality of the staff clearly would position him to begin substantively to engage on very important issues.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_07: I was gonna say what qualities made Dole a successful chairman of finance?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_14: Yeah.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_14: Well, I don't know.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_14: I was not a member of finance except as an ex-officio member.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_14: But it is undeniably so that personality has a lot to do with the success or failure of a senator and certainly of a committee chairman.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_14: And Dole from the very beginning was a highly successful chairman, not only in administering the staff and providing for the housekeeping details of the committee, and also in terms of deciding on the agenda of the Senate, of the Finance Committee, but uh he was the people respected his point of view.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_14: Not everyone agreed with his point of view, but they respected it, and I continue to.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_07: Because of course, at the beginning, in 81, you had the whole Reagan economic program with uh, I guess in the end it was a 25% tax cut, some significant, relatively significant spending cuts and other measures as well.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_07: Now, Bob Dole was not a supply-side conservative.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not sure where you fit in in that picture, but and yet he was a very good soldier.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_07: Um, how did that happen, and what were his what were his strengths in terms of uh making something like that happen?
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_11: Bob Dole's strengths was number one, he had what it takes to make the Senate work, working across party lines, similar to what Baucus and I do now.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_11: Uh he was respected because he was a war hero.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_11: I think that helped more.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_11: I don't think he'd want to admit that.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_11: I think it was, you know, but I think it's a fact of life.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_11: I think he's still respected for that reason, more than maybe even being a darn good senator.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_11: You know, I mean, he he's really he really demonstrated what World War II was all about for a lot of people.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_11: Uh his strength was uh basically uh knowing the legislative process very well, working across lines, working hard.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_11: I mean, when Bob Dole wasn't traveling someplace on a Saturday, he had his whole staff in his Kansas office here in the Hart building working at least part of the day, and maybe all day for all I know.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_11: He had the ability to attract outstanding staff.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_11: Um but I think the most important thing was to just have the legislative process work, uh, and the art of compromise.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_07: I think becoming chairman of the finance committee a kind of a turning point.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh becoming ranking first and then chairman.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think there is no question people expected because it came so soon after the 76 election.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean i um uh i I think people expected the biting, you know, divisive politics.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and uh um what they came to see over time was someone who was hadn had an interest in actually resolving issues and was remarkably respectful, you know, whether it was of Long, whether it was of Moynihan, whomever it happened to be, or even on his own side.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a wide array of points of view um in terms of, you know, from Phil Graham to John Chafee, um uh that you know, he had an interest in convening, he had an interest in consensus.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, when we had to, we forced it through and we put the chairman's mark on the table and we moved it.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: But um uh he was remarkably responsive, similarly with the House.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whether it was Rostinkowski or or whomever it happened to be, um uh you know, Charlie Wrangle.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there, you know, you can imagine those sort of cast of characters in both the House and the Senate.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think people on both sides of the aisle, but on the Democratic side particularly, came to see that here was someone with whom we could deal.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here is someone that you could trust, someone whose word you could take as as uh uh a pledge and a bond.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_05: You the two of you would seem to come from very different uh backgrounds and uh um and yet you you you clearly established a a a pretty special bond.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_05: Where did that come from?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_08: Came from adversity.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_08: Came from us uh clashing together early on in uh 1981 when uh I uh uh supported the continuation of tax exempt financing for industrial revenue bonds.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_08: IDBs uh 81 interest rates were out of reach, soaring.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_08: I had been a local representative uh representing a large municipality, a town, uh, which had a number of villages in it.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_08: The town of Hempstead in Long Island had about eight hundred thousand people, and uh as the uh supervisor equivalent of mayor of a community, I saw how important these bonds were because they uh um reduced the interest rates considerably over private placement.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_08: And uh uh Bob being a free marketeer and believing in the free enterprise system didn't believe that uh uh these bonds should be sold.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_08: And of course he was urged, he's a great supporter of the president and the Treasury Department was opposed to it, they said they were losing revenue.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_08: Of course, I thought they were taking a very narrow view because these transactions wouldn't have taken place in in the free market system if there wasn't this subsidy of making these bonds more attractive because they were tax-free and therefore in some instances carried a two to three percent reduction in interest, and that made deals possible that otherwise wouldn't be.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_08: Remember, we were mired in a uh high interest rate, uh low growth uh uh quagmire, which uh um the uh former president blamed on the American people, uh Mr.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_08: Carter, but uh indeed was much more than that.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_08: And so the last thing we needed to do is to make it more difficult for these transactions to take place.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_08: I believed in this, I carried this bill, um, and um uh to the chagrin of Senator Dahl, who battled me every inch of the way, and and who I was able to overcome uh his opposition, he was chairman of the finance committee and a powerful chairman and respected.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_08: But I rolled him in in the appropriations committee by putting on a little amendment that said no monies will be used by the Treasury Department as it relates to any rules or regulations that would prohibit the sale of or the prohibit the uh the use of industrial revenue bonds.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_08: Uh he then tried to get some people on the floor to uh defeat that.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_08: Uh he wasn't able to do that because many people, particularly uh from the rural from states like Mississippi, uh so the Senator Cochran and old John Stennis were allies of mine and others, we were able to sustain the or keep the industrial revenue bonds and not have them severely impaired.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_08: They were able to place some regulations and restrictions which were uh absolutely correct.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_08: In other words, you couldn't use these proceeds, I remember, out of bookstores, they you know, uh things like that.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_08: Uh uh and so that was that was reasonable.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_08: And I remember having a a talk with Bob and I said to him, you know, um I'd rather work with you than be working against you.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, here's this young whippersnapper talking to this veteran, uh bright, astute, powerful leader.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_08: And uh he took me up on it, showed the medal of the man, and we became fast colleagues and friends uh from that point on.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_08: It was it was the initial conflict that didn't separate us, but rather brought us together.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_08: The measure of Babdol, the man, not somebody who would hold a grudge because on an issue that he was carrying the ball for the administration, and by the way, the braviest warrior you ever saw, he carried things for the administration that nobody else would have carried.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh think of an example.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, yeah, the ridiculous uh business of freezing the callers on social security.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, ridiculous, stupid politically, but the administration, they were part of that, they wanted that, and he marched forward carrying that that that flag.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_08: And I said to him, I I don't see this thing.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but he was a loyalist, he certainly a great loyalist to uh President um uh Reagan and even a a a great loyalist uh to someone who defeated him uh in the uh uh primary for presidency, um um President Bush.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_08: Um and um um he notwithstanding that he wanted to run, he wanted to be the standard barrier, uh no one worked harder um uh for his election and for his programs that that he really carried the the banner for.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_08: But that was Bob Dole.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_08: Bob Dole um again one of the um the great legislative leaders and a man of fabulous integrity.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_08: Um and um if if he was your friend you you didn't need too many others.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, he would be there.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_05: You know, he he was never a supply fighter.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_08: I mean that I mean that was not his yeah, his he was much more pragmatic right.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_05: And yet he was certainly a good soldier in terms of uh the eighty-one bill.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_05: But then of course you had the eighty-two bill taking some of the ornaments off the Christmas tree.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that must have been a very difficult thing, first of all, to sell to the White House, yeah.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_05: And secondly, to sell to his colleagues.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_08: Well, again, um I don't know if he sold it so much to the White House as to uh uh as to his really carrying it for them.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_08: He would let me tell you, he didn't go out on his own.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_08: I don't believe that.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_08: I think he uh there wasn't anything he didn't do with the full cooperation of the administration and um and if anything, he was in the final analysis the soldier who made possible and he carried he carried the legislation that maybe they didn't want to be identified with.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_08: I don't think he did and carried legislation on his own.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_08: He didn't.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_08: He absolutely did not.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_08: And I don't care you tell me what what the bill was and I'll tell you, I'll dig it up and I'll tell you you you will see the fine hand of the president or Jim Baker or somebody else behind it or treasury, you know, behind it, and and and dull carrying it.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_08: I mean he he was not somebody who usurped uh certainly not the Reagan administration.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_08: He was there with him.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_08: Uh he loved uh Ronald Reagan and he was a great, great soldier for him.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_08: And his relationship with uh Howard Baker was a magnificent um he never never attempted to undercut him, was always there for him.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_08: And of course Baker was a supreme master of the in our next episode.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_10: The 1981 Tatville Tephra and Ronald Reagan.