October 13, 1994: Vol26n6: Conable gives inside view of Congress

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
Congress and our democracy may not be perfect, but before you become too cynical, consider the alternatives. That was the message brought to a class of UB law students by former Congressman Barber Conable during a campus appearance Oct. 3. Conable came to UB to share his insights into the workings of the House Ways & Means Committee with law students in a tax policy seminar focusing on that body and its role in the 1986 overhaul of the U.S. tax code. Conable was ranking minority member of that tax-writing committee for eight years.
	He represented parts of Rochester and rural WNY in the House of Representatives from 1967 until he retired in 1984. Several years later, his former Ways & Means colleague, President George Bush, drew him back to public service for a five-year stint as president of the World Bank, which finances development projects in underdeveloped nations.
	"When I left the House," recalled Conable, "it was because disenchantment was already growing in Congress. It was not a happy place to work any more." Also contributing to his decision to retire was Conable's relationship with then Ways & Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. Unlike previous chairs with whom Conable had worked, Rostenkowski felt he had "a mandate to represent the majority party exclusively," Conable said."He stacked the committee and cut deals with his subcommittee chairmen that virtually closed out minority members from meaningful participation," Conable said. "I decided, after a while, that I might as well be somewhere where you can make real decisions."
	However, early on in their relationship Conable recalls having an upper hand on Rostenkowski. "He had to spend the first couple of years learning the tax code when he became chairman," chuckled Conable, "because, until he was chairman, he never came to committee meetings." As a result, "Rosty" suffered several embarrassing defeats on the House floor at the hands of the better-prepared Conable. Rostenkowski stepped down as chairman of that committee this year, when he was indicted on charges of abusing the powers of his office.
	It was with some trepidation Conable said, that he accepted an appointment to Ways & Means. He had asked Gerald Ford for Appropriations or Foreign Affairs, but Ford asked him to try Ways & Means. "We all knew Ways & Means was a real pressure cooker," Conable said, "and Appropriations was the glamour job - those guys always got all those honorary degrees." The first Ways & Means chair he worked under, Wilbur Mills, had "a kaleidoscopic knowledge of the tax law," he said.
	Mills' style was one of consensus, Conable said. "He would seek out Republican input so that a bill could be passed nearly unanimously." Mills' bills were rarely amended on the floor, he said. "Tax legislation is heavily influenced by personalities of the Ways & Means members," said Conable, who worked on seven major tax reform bills while in Congress."The siren song of tax reform is simplicity," he said, "but after each major tax reform was enacted, the tax code was more complicated than it was before. This is probably because of the amount of compromise required to strike an accord. Compromise is the enemy of simplicity."
	A lifelong Republican, Conable has not always been mainstream conservative. He supports a progressive tax policy, which places a proportionally higher tax burden on the wealthy.
	"We already saw," said Conable, "that massive tax cuts fuel consumption, not savings. It will just drive up the deficit and fuel inflation." His World Bank experience has convinced him that our low savings rate is a major economic problem. "Our savings rate is something like 3.8%, compared with 11% in Canada, 25% in Japan and a 30% investment rate in China."