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The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

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the yeAR <strong>of</strong> Living dAngeRousLy 191<br />

Old friends promoted<br />

to the other <strong>Washington</strong>:<br />

Congressman Joel<br />

Pritchard <strong>and</strong> U.S.<br />

Senators Dan Evans<br />

<strong>and</strong> Slade Gorton.<br />

<strong>Washington</strong> <strong>State</strong><br />

Archives<br />

Gorton <strong>and</strong> Lawton Chiles, the Budget Committee’s ranking Democrat,<br />

put together a middle-ground plan that finally broke the impasse.<br />

Domenici <strong>and</strong> Chiles, a gentlemanly moderate from Florida, were good<br />

friends. With Domenici in the White House dog house, Gorton’s role as<br />

the chairman’s chief strategist took on new importance. Steve Bell, the<br />

Budget Committee’s staff director, sat about six feet from Gorton during<br />

every committee meeting. “Although a lot <strong>of</strong> Republicans got mad at him,<br />

I thought Slade was engaged in a real act <strong>of</strong> statesmanship as he tried to<br />

put together a budget resolution that could be bipartisan in nature when<br />

we had run into an absolute stone wall,” Bell says. “When I would talk to<br />

his staff <strong>and</strong> heard that people back home perceived him as (divisive) it<br />

was amazing to me that a guy who is so constructive could be seen as so<br />

polarizing.”<br />

<strong>The</strong> fallback Gorton-Chiles plan advocated $9 billion in tax increases,<br />

sparing some social programs from deeper cuts, <strong>and</strong> a 6 percent increase<br />

in military spending. It squeaked out <strong>of</strong> the Senate, 50-49, <strong>and</strong> headed to<br />

reconciliation. <strong>The</strong> House wanted $30 billion in new taxes <strong>and</strong> 4 percent<br />

real growth in military spending. Reagan vowed that he would veto any<br />

tax increase <strong>and</strong> held tight on 10 percent for the Pentagon.<br />

By fall the economy had moved from recovery to expansion <strong>and</strong> the<br />

Dow Jones Industrial Average posted back-to-back records, closing at<br />

1,272. Senate <strong>and</strong> House budget conferees compromised on a plan calling<br />

for $12 billion in additional revenues <strong>and</strong> a 5 percent real increase for the<br />

Pentagon. No veto was forthcoming but deciding who got gored was tortuous.<br />

Reagan was never reconciled to reconciliation. Gorton said the president<br />

<strong>and</strong> Congress better face the music: “We can’t balance the budget

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