Barbara N. McLennan, Author of Reagan's Mandate: Anecdotes from Inside Wahington's Iron Triangle

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Barbara N. McLennan

Author of

Reagan's Mandate

Anecdotes from Inside Washington's Iron Triangle

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Reagan's Mandate—Anecdotes from Inside Washington's Iron Triangle (March 2009) describes how Washington's Iron Triangle-the combination of Congress, lobbies, and Administration -changed our national government thirty years ago. The book recounts Dr. McLennan's journey, in the 1970s and 1980s, from university professor to minority staff member on the House Budget Committee, to the office of a young Senator, to the Treasury Department to work on tax reform, and to the Commerce Department where as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade Information and Analysis she represented the U.S. to international organizations and supervised the preparation of numerous government publications.

The memoir is unique because Dr. McLennan was the only Congressional staff member to work both on Reagan's first budget in the House and his first tax bill in the Senate. These bills passed Congress with strong bipartisan support. In 1984, as the only Congressional staffer to move to the Treasury Department, she participated in the preparation of the study that proposed tax reform. Based on this study, Congress in 1986 reformed the income tax with bipartisan support. All of these events occurred at a time when very few women held senior positions in the U. S. government.

When Dr. McLennan entered the job market many women didn't work, and most didn't pursue higher education. The only female in many college classes, she became one of very few women in 1965 who earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin. Only small numbers of women then worked as business executives, professors, lawyers, doctors, or senior government officials. Reagan's Mandate tells about women's progress in the U.S. job market over the last part of the twentieth century.

Reagan's Mandate shows how our federal government made decisions when the President set the agenda, Congress passed the laws, and elected political majorities were small and weak. The memoir addresses election year issues of concern to people who care about the day-to-day operations and policy change in our government: budget balancing, taxes, and international trade.

Barbara's Interview on AuthorTalk

Reviews

Former Vice President Dan Quayle

Review date: 2/10/2009
“Barbara McLennan worked with me on the SELF-tax, a proposal for radical tax reform and tax simplification. That bill was a forerunner of the legislation that eventually passed as the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Barbara’s memoir describes the Washington tax writing process, the main players, and the role of staff and individual Senators in legislating economic policy for the nation. This is a must read for those interested in tax policies and how legislation becomes law.”

Peggy Morrissette, former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan

Review date: 2/4/2009

“Barbara McLennan could be Forrest Gump—popping up in key places at crucial points—except her involvement is far from being simply an observer. This remarkable memoir offers rare glimpses of well-known leaders and keen insights about the far less well-known workings of our Congress and executive branch during times when the ideas and efforts of a few individuals made a real difference. Through it all she maintains an enviable sense of wonder and personal responsibility one wishes were the norm rather than the exception in government service.”

Rick Oliver, CEO of American Sentinel University, former F-500 executive

Review date: 2/2/2009

“This insightful and unique account of our country’s most transformational budget, tax, and trade legislation in recent history, comes from deep inside the “Iron Triangle.” Barbara McLennan paints a vivid portrait of the conflict and compromise among Congressional staff, representatives and senators, as well as cabinet officials themselves. While an important contribution to the political science literature, this book is a must read for anyone concerned with understanding the change afoot in Washington today. The names have changed, but the drama described by McLennan provides readers with an insiders’ game book for today’s action!”

About The Author

Dr. McLennan's experience as professor and public official provides much of the content, approach and analysis in “Reagan’s Mandate.”

Listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, she holds a Ph.D. in Political Science as well as a law degree. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Information and Analysis and as Industry Economist with the US Treasury. A former association executive, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and the College of William and Mary, author, and lecturer on tax, international trade, investment, and telecommunications regulation, she has testified before the US Congress on tax, trade and investment issues.

For nearly ten years, she served as an international tax specialist with the Treasury Department. While there, she was a member of the small group of Treasury analysts who prepared the Treasury Department Report to the President, Tax Reform for Fairness, Simplicity and Economic Growth, published in November 1984. This study served as the basis for the Administration’s tax proposal which became law in 1986.

Later, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Information and Analysis, she directed a staff of nearly one hundred to provide data, research and analysis of international trade, investment and finance issues, including preparation and production of three of the Government’s most widely used publications, US Industrial Outlook, US Trade Performance, and Foreign Direct Investment in the US. In addition, she served as Head of the US delegation to the Industry Committee, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, and as US Delegate and Chairman, Working Group on Trade and Investment Data, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Tokyo and Singapore.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Dr. McLennan worked in the U. S. Congress. Between 1981 and 1984 she served as Legislative Assistant for Finance and Budget to Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana. There she coordinated the legislative activities of a small staff and personally prepared legislation, testimony, speeches, floor remarks, articles, and analytic papers on issues relating to tax, budget and international trade.

Before joining the staff of Senator Quayle, she served as a Budget Analyst for the Committee on the Budget in the US House of Representatives. There she analyzed the budget impacts of various legislative proposals in the areas of health, education and income security and prepared analytic papers and floor remarks on budget-related subjects.

Prior to her work for the Congress, she held the position of professor of political science at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While a professor she published four books and numerous academic articles and research studies. Her books include a text book on comparative political systems, a major contribution to the teaching literature which was used in university courses for over ten years. This book received favorable reviews, described by the publisher as “a break-through book, cohesive yet wide-ranging in nature and, in general, a superb synthesis with original conclusions of the best in contemporary comparative politics research.” It was published in two separate editions, Comparative Politics and Public Policy, (Duxbury Press, 1980) and Comparative Political Systems: Developed and Developing Nations, (Duxbury Press, 1975). As editor and contributor she also published two books of readings, Political Opposition and Dissent (The Dunellen Company, 1973), and Crime in Urban Society (The Dunellen Company, 1970).