The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

22 | Déjà vu All Over Again
EXit poLLs confiRMed thAt MondALe got very little traction on the
deficit. What resonated—and backfired—was his unapologetic acknowledgment
that if elected he would raise taxes. When the budget
battle was rejoined in the winter of ’85, the president wanted 6 percent
more for defense and deep cuts in domestic spending. The Social Security
cost-of-living adjustment, however, was now off limits. Domenici and
Gorton kept plugging away. The Senate countered with an inflation adjustment
for defense in Fiscal Year 1986 and 3 percent real growth in both
FY 87 and 88, plus a one-year freeze on the COLAs. Domenici’s goal was
to trim the deficit by some $60 billion.
Come spring, the White House and the Senate were still entrenched,
bobbing up periodically to exchange grenades. The Senate won a temporary
victory at 1:30 a.m. on May 10 when “a pale and weak” Pete Wilson
was pushed slowly into the Senate Chamber in a wheelchair to a standing
ovation. The Republican from California, who had undergone an emergency
appendectomy the day before, brought the house down when he
looked up at Dole before he voted and deadpanned, “What was the question?”
Wilson’s vote pushed the Senate’s FY1986 budget resolution into
a tie that Vice President Bush promptly broke. In the House, however,
O’Neill’s majority Democrats flatly rejected any compromise on the
COLAs. Reagan took to the airwaves to declare everyone should read his
lips. “I’ll repeat it until I’m blue in the face: I will veto any tax increase the
Congress sends me.” 1
The guns-and-butter debate got even hotter in July after Gorton and
Chiles came up with another bipartisan plan to put a bigger dent in the
deficit. It called for $59 billion in new taxes stretched over three years,
less for defense and no Social Security cost-of-living increases. To soften
the blow, the plan advocated investing 20 percent of the overall savings in
programs to help needy old folks. 2
The president hosted a cocktail hour at the White House. Gorton and
Chiles were invited, together with Dole and O’Neill. Congressman Lowry
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