by Scott Brown
I believe strongly that taxes are too high. But they are now getting much worse. For months in 2010, Congress and the administration dithered over taking still more money out of the pockets of hardworking Americans. This is an issue that deserves serious attention, but rather than address it and give American families and businesses confidence that they will not face dramatically higher taxes in the coming years, which would have helped the economy emerge far sooner from a terrible recession, the House and Senate spent the overwhelming majority of their floor time on a health-care bill full of new mandates and taxes—like the new tax on medical devices—legislation that a majority of the American people did not want. Even after the health-care bill was passed, very little effort was spent on thinking of ways to revive the economy. Instead, hardworking Americans are likely to be stuck with bigger government bills.
Only after the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives by a sizable majority and made impressive gains in the U.S. Senate did the Obama administration begin to talk seriously about not raising taxes on Americans at the start of 2011. Until that moment, many Democrats were arguing in favor of a set of onerous burdens, including a dramatic increase in every tax bracket, from the lowest to the highest, and a dramatic increase in the marriage penalty, which would punish families who are trying to build a life together. The child tax credit was set to be cut in half, from $1,000 to $500; even teachers would have faced losing the ability to deduct their classroom expenses. And as I write this, in the late fall of 2010, millions of middle-class Americans may still face the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed just to make the superrich pay more, but has never been indexed to inflation. As a consequence, more and more working families are being forced to absorb the same tax penalties as multimillionaires. We are also seeing new burdens being placed on businesses, including a crazy requirement, which was rammed through with the health-care bill, for small businesses to report nearly every transaction on a separate government form. Only after Republican electoral gains did President Obama begin to signal that he was now open to changing this crippling requirement. But the tax debate only scratches the surface—we need to do much more. Throughout 2010, Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s inability to make economic issues the top congressional priority was the most frustrating thing to me as a new senator. To maintain its own wasteful ways and bloated spending, our own government is content to further squeeze the many families and individuals, small-business owners, and double-shift workers who are just trying to get by. This has got to end.
Lowering tax rates encourages citizens to invest and to save and also to spend. It encourages businesses to hire new workers. It encourages entrepreneurs to start new ventures. Each time a business hires a new employee, we expand the productive base of our economy. We can solve a significant portion of the federal government’s fiscal mess by growing our economy. A robust economy automatically creates more tax revenue—and no one has to raise taxes to do it. It’s created by more jobs, more sales, more profits. It’s created by more people prospering. But that fundamental economic lesson seems to have been forgotten in tax and spend Washington.
Yet even with all these taxes, we are passing on an unfathomable amount of debt to our children and grandchildren. Nearly every minute, we add a new $1 million in debt. Each U.S. citizen owes more than $43,000 in debt racked up by the government; each individual taxpayer is on the hook for over $120,000. By 2020, our national debt will be 67 percent of all the money our country makes each year. I believe this level of government spending, where the taxpayers are stuck with the bill, is immoral.
Although I am grateful that public assistance was available for brief periods for my mother, I am also deeply grateful that she never became dependent on it, that she always returned to work and also taught my sister and me the value of a strong work ethic. Today, our government has become too dependent on taxing its citizens and is always asking them for more, as if it were entitled. We need to force government to become more efficient and to ask for less.
I believe that power concentrated in the hands of one political party, as it is in Massachusetts, leads to bad government and poor decisions. That holds true for Democrats and Republicans. It is something that we need to guard against. There is little uglier than the arrogance of power or the bashing of our opponents for partisan and selfish ends.
I believe in a strong military that will protect our interests and ensure security around the world, and in a vigorous homeland defense. We owe the men and women of our Armed Forces our complete dedication and unmeasured devotion. They give us nothing less every day and every hour of our lives. If we can’t support them 100 percent, we should not ask them to give their all. And we owe their families a debt as well. We can enjoy our comforts because they do without.
I believe that Americans are a dynamic, vibrant people and nation. We are a force for good at home and abroad. I want it to be easier for the many daring and creative people among us to unleash their entrepreneurial talents. I want businesses to grow, families to flourish, and new ideas to be celebrated in laboratories, factories, offices, schools, and homes around the country. To that end, I want our government to be a help, not a hindrance; I want We the People to come first.
I have always thought that being in government service is a privilege, not a right. The Founders’ ideal of a citizen legislature is that our representatives should live the same lives as the people they represent, our citizens.
Not too long after I arrived in Washington, Fred Thompson, whose house I had briefly rented, invited me for dinner at the Palm Restaurant, a far cry from my usual haunts—family-style Italian restaurants in Boston’s North End. Gail and I went with Fred and his wife, Jeri, and another couple. When we arrived, I was told that the Shrivers were there and had asked whether I would like to meet them. The Shrivers are, of course, a well-known Maryland Democratic family and cousins of the Kennedys. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded Special Olympics, was Jack, Bobby, and Teddy’s sister. But Eunice died in 2009, a few weeks before her brother Ted. In my mind, I pictured a group of younger people, and in fact there had been some familiar-looking faces watching me from the bar when I came in. I said no, thanks, I don’t want to interrupt; the six of us sat down to our meal.
When we finished, I looked over and noticed two guys standing by a door with shiny pins on their lapels. I’m a big pin guy, since in the military, pins have all kinds of significance and indicate all types of classifications. I went over to ask about their pins. They told me they were bodyguards for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. At that moment, I wasn’t thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger, California governor, husband of Maria Shriver. I was thinking of Arnold the movie star, Terminator, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, and True Lies. And that Arnold was also, like me, a former Cosmo guy. Can I meet him? I asked. The two guys looked at my pins and said, “You’re a new United States senator; you can do pretty much whatever you want.” They motioned to the door to a private room. The door was halfway open. Inside was a long table, and Arnold was seated at one end, leaning back in his chair, puffing on a cigar. I walked in, eyes focused on him, and said, “Excuse me, Governor, I’m—” And then suddenly I heard another voice, a woman’s voice: “You’re the new United States senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown.” And then it hit me: these were the Shrivers, and Arnold’s wife, Maria, was the one now speaking to me. They were the ones who had invited me to come over, and I hadn’t realized and had declined.
I walked closer to the table, and noted that Arnold is a bit smaller in person than I had expected for a man who battled bad guys in the movies and was Mr. Universe; face-to-face, he’s compact, handsome, and confident. Maria added, “Thank you for your gracious words about Uncle Teddy on election night. The family appreciated that very much.” Indeed, out of respect, the first call I made on election night was to Ted Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, and I kept a picture of Ted Kennedy on the mantel in the reception room of
317 Russell, my first U.S. Senate office and the office where he used to serve. But now, like a kid in a candy store, I was getting to meet Arnold, the action hero turned governor. We exchanged a few words, and then one of the other Shrivers at the table asked, “So where’s your office? Are you out in a trailer or something?” I answered that I was in the same office Ted Kennedy had occupied. He looked at me with utter shock and said, “You have Uncle Teddy’s office?” “Yeah, I have Uncle Teddy’s office,” I replied, and then Maria said, “You have Uncle Teddy’s office?”
At this point, Arnold interrupted them all and began to laugh. He said in his perfect Terminator voice, “Maria, Maria. It’s not Uncle Teddy’s office. It’s the people’s office.” He leaned back and let the laughter roll, although no one else in the room was laughing, and I decided that now was probably a good time for me to quickly make my way to the door.
But it was a great joke. And it is also the truth.
Chapter Eighteen
Spider’s Web
My life is like a spiderweb, each piece integral to the construction of the whole. A spider begins with a long, fine, sticky thread that it releases from the tips of its spinners and allows to drift on whatever breeze happens by. The edge of the drifting thread will then land and attach itself to some harder surface, like a tree branch or the quiet corner of a room. Only then, when that first line is secure, will the spider walk along its anchoring thread and add a second, like a structural beam, for extra strength and hold. Next, the spider branches out, spinning its silks wider, methodically adding radial threads and then circular threads to fortify the web at its center. The final creation is an intricate combination of perfectly positioned sticky threads for construction and also for hunting prey, and a series of nonsticky threads across which the spider moves, suspended in the air, gliding over its own design. Sever just one key link and the entire web succumbs to capricious winds. With one cut, the entire web is razed.
My life is like that web. I cannot imagine any piece of its design to be any different; I would not change any part of the experiences that have been woven together to create the larger whole.
I would not change my parents’ marriage or their divorce, or the years I spent imagining but never really spending time with and getting to know my father. I would not change the men my mother married, even the bruises left by their fists and stubby fingertips. I would not change the days I went hungry or the graying, too-small clothing that after hundreds of washings I could no longer get clean. I would not change the afternoons I stole food or the day I stole those record albums. I would not change the mornings I waited for my father, when he didn’t come. I would not change the fights with my mother or the times when, in desperation and devastation, I ran away. I would not change the jobs I worked at, from cleaning the deep-fry grease and the bathrooms at Dunkin’ Donuts to being a liquor store clerk, a babysitter, or a house painter, or cleaning up vomit in dormitory stairs, or modeling for Cosmo and afterward. If I changed any one of these things, it would change the architecture of my life, and I would no longer be the person that I am today.
Had I not grown up hungering for a family, I might never have appreciated the one I am blessed with now. Had I not yearned and longed for my own dad, I might never have been the dad who was determined not to miss a basketball game or who would treasure getting a handmade Father’s Day coupon entitling me to a night at the movies with my girls. Had I not known violence, not seen what it did to my mother and my sister Leeann, I might never have represented other women in their divorce cases and fought to free them from abusive homes. Had I not been forced to become a protector, of my mother and my sister, I might not have grown up to be a problem solver, to look for the way out, for the resolution to the dispute rather than focusing on the obstacle. Had I not known privation and adversity, and the fear of having barely a dollar to my name, I might not appreciate how precious each dollar is to the men and women who earn it, working at two jobs, trying to provide for themselves and those who depend on them. Had I grown up with abundance or even in relative comfort, I might not have been nearly as hardworking and hungry myself. Had I not been preyed upon as a child, I might never have fought against predators as an adult in the Massachusetts State Senate, to try to ensure that other kids never had to face down an attacker along a wooded path or in an empty bathroom stall.
Had I never posed for Cosmopolitan magazine and modeled, I would have chafed for years under a different kind of dependence, owing vast sums of loans, indebted to whatever institution had written my tuition checks. Those photos gave me independence, financial and personal. Also, without them, nothing might have begun to bridge the gaping distance between my father and me. I almost certainly would never have met my beautiful Gail, and we would not have our two wonderful daughters. And because of what I missed in some parts of my life, I had the good sense to take guidance in other places, from the coaches, teachers, drill sergeants, adults, and friends who offered it. From them, I began to learn the value of devoting oneself to others, whether they be teammates, colleagues, fellow Guardsmen and soldiers, or friends and family, or complete strangers who need a helping hand.
The hardships I have known have led me to appreciate the life that I have been able to build. I can and do appreciate every moment because I know that there was no certainty when I started that I would ever reach the point where I am now.
In telling my story, I don’t want anyone’s pity or sympathy vote. I’m not a woe-is-me guy. Nor do I believe that personal difficulty is in any way essential for developing compassion, or dedication, or success. Instead, I believe that we each create our own playing fields and that we are all capable of overcoming whatever challenges might otherwise hold us back. The ability to persevere, whatever the circumstances, lies in each one of us.
Like a fractured bone, I have knit back stronger in the broken places. And the things that I endured are relatively small things compared with the experiences of the men and women in our military who enter combat zones, knowing that each day could be their last—or compared with the experiences of firefighters who race into burning buildings or police officers who instinctively keep one hand poised above their holster when they make a suspicious traffic stop. They put their lives at risk for total strangers; they put danger in the forefront of their duties so that the rest of us can place it in the back of ours. Fifty-one years later, I have my limbs, I have my life, and I am grateful. I am, when I look around, blessed.
The life I have led has, I hope, given me perspective, shown me the value of a second chance, of working for a greater good. Like those gossamer links of the spiderweb, each facet strengthens and reinforces the others.
When I ran for the state representative slot, I prevailed on my parents to come down to the Wrentham area and hold signs for my campaign on Election Day. They came again during my state senate race, to hold signs on those final weekends and on Election Day. My dad also sent fund-raising letters to help me come up with the volume of cash needed for that special election run and helped get a lot of signatures. He had been a successful and well-respected selectman in Newburyport for sixteen years, and he had made some political contacts. He understood the demands of local retail politicking. On election night in 2004, he was there with me and so was my mom. She was less than pleased to see my father, just as she had been less than pleased to see him when I won for state rep. In her view, she had done all the heavy lifting during my growing-up years, and now he was here to reap the rewards of my success after having gone missing for so long. To her, he simply did not belong. But I told her that he is my dad, adding, “I want both of you here. I want both of you in the pictures. I want to share the night with both of you.”
I can’t say that I have completely put the past behind me. With my mother and my father, I retain the sense that perhaps the other shoe will drop, that there may be some other disappointment or obstacles. For my own protection, out of instinct, I keep holding a littl
e piece of myself in reserve. Giving them my complete trust is something that I still have to work on myself. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot forgive them. I have and I do. They each made some choices, whether out of necessity, emotion, foolishness, or inexperience, which I know they now regret. My mother had every right to be angry and hurt, given all that she had gone through. My father had his own family turmoil to overcome. At a certain point, as adults, we stopped dwelling so much on our pasts and focused on our future. I’m sure this book will be hard for them to read, that it will be hard, painful even, for them to relive those early years and those parts of our lives. But I hope they are proud too of the distances that we have traveled and the steps toward healing that we have all taken, many of them now together.
My father tells me that he loves me. He calls me and my family; he wants to be in my life, to see me, to spend time with me, with Gail, and with Ayla and Arianna. He is there for me; and for that I’m thankful. I am the one now who parcels out each visit—my bruising schedule and the biweekly flights to and from Washington, D.C., barely leave me with time for an occasional evening with my wife, or a quick meal with my daughters. The wheel has turned in ways that none of us expected; now that my parents have time for me, my time is no longer my own. But my mother is getting a second chance with her four grandchildren, happily attending Ayla’s basketball games and singing events, applauding at Arianna’s horse shows or horse races, and cheering at the games of Leeann’s daughter and son. Now, without the pressure of being a provider, she can take pleasure in the lives of her children and her grandchildren.
