The Congressional Journal of Barber B. Conable, Jr., 1968-1984

Barber B. Conable, Jr.--perhaps the most respected member of Congress of his era--kept a frank, insightful, revealing journal available now for the first time thanks to the efforts of editor Bill Kauffman in The Congressional Journal of Barber B. Conable, Jr., 1968-1984.

The journal is an honest, searching, sometimes humorous, occasionally cutting, and always fascinating look inside Congress. Conable, a Republican member of the House from upstate New York, wrote perceptively about Presidents Nixon, Ford, H. W. Bush, and the leading congressional figures of the day. For seventeen years he wrote about the big events as well as daily political life in an era that included Vietnam, Watergate, political realignment, and major changes in entitlements and taxes, where he played a key role.

Displaying his gift for clear expression and astute insight, Conable narrates the machinations of major tax measures, trade bills, and such special interests of his as public financing of congressional campaigns. While he is never shy about expressing personal judgments, he revels in the give and take of legislative politics. Conable had an acute sense of the human dynamics of legislating: In addition to the tax bills he shaped and struggled with as the leading Republican on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, his work with the 1982-1983 Social Security Commission, led by Alan Greenspan, is a classic exercise. Conable thought a deal was critical for the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund but politically almost impossible given the differing priorities of the chief protagonists, President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill. In the journal Conable pronounces the effort doomed on January 13, 1983. Two days later he marvels at the political and personal dexterity and skill that ended up producing a deal.

The journal illuminates Conable's intellect, his commitment to his constituents, and his appreciation of principled pragmatism; his writings are in real time, not rendered retrospectively to make himself look better, a rarity among political legacies.

Author: Bill Kauffman
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 06/30/2021
Pages: 472
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.54lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780700632091

About the Author
Kauffman, Bill: - Bill Kauffman is the author of eleven books, among them Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette and Look Homeward, America. He also wrote the screenplay for the feature film Copperhead. Bill lives in his native Genesee County, New York, several miles up Route 98 from the old Conable home.