The Bonus Book of the Week is “Unlimited Partners, Our American Story” by Bob and Elizabeth Dole, published in 1996.
Born in 1923 in Russell, Kansas, Bob Dole was the second oldest of four children. His small agricultural hometown was plagued by the usual disasters: prairie fires, droughts, tornadoes, grasshoppers, blizzards and dust storms, in addition to politics. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, in November 1923, oil was discovered there. Bob’s father ran a creamery. The family went fishing and hunting.
Bob started attending the University of Kansas thinking he wanted to become a doctor. “By mixing me with all sorts of people, living in a frat house was good preparation for what lay ahead.” Fate threw him for a loop, as he suffered a severe spinal cord injury while serving in WWII. His strong psychological constitution saw him recover sufficient physical ability to earn a law degree, and become a Republican.
In 1960, while running for Congress, Bob distributed free pineapple juice to get name recognition, even though his family had nothing to do with the produce company.
Elizabeth became Bob’s second wife. They had no children together. She was born in 1937 in Salisbury, North Carolina. There were only 24 women out of 550 students in her Harvard Law School class of 1965. One of her classmates criticized her for displacing a white male.
Bob and Elizabeth both served in various leadership positions in the American government through the years. In 1981, Bob helped pass the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which gave Americans a 25% personal income tax cut over the course of three years. The following year however, to mitigate the financial hangover of that, Congress passed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. Its accounting tricks allegedly reduced the national debt by almost $100 billion through closing the loopholes of the previous bill, plus raising taxes a bit and cutting spending.
Read the book to learn of: Elizabeth’s post-government career; Bob’s high praise for President Ronald Reagan, and harsh criticisms of President Bill Clinton; his proposals for tax reform, and vast generalizations of his views on a host of other political issues. After all, Bob was running for president when the book was published.