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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2009
In 1985 and 1986, Congress undertook the largest reform of the U.S. tax code since World War II. The goal of the reformers, particularly President Ronald Reagan, was to reduce personal income tax rates by raising corporate tax rates and closing most loopholes for wealthy individuals and businesses (Birnbaum and Murray 1987, p. 22). One of the key players in that process was former Representative Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. To pass the legislation in the committee required both political skill and resources, and his were considerable. The New York Times described how he did it:
On a Friday morning in November …, hours before the Ways and Means Committee was to vote …, Mr. Rostenkowski sat with a list in the committee's library and began calling other members to tell them of special tax breaks he had sneaked into the bill just for them. They included favorable tax treatment for stadiums in Cleveland, Miami and the Meadowlands in New Jersey, for waste-treatment plants in New York City and on Long Island, for a convention center in Miami, for parking garages in Memphis and Charleston, S. C., for St. Luke's Hospital and New York University in Manhattan, and, not surprisingly, for a savings and loan association in Chicago. Members who planned to vote against the bill got nothing for their districts.
(Rosenbaum 1994)Rostenkowski's horse trading is part of the tradition commonly known as pork barrel politics.
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