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There was no coup, just a White House debate in which both sides used "the Reagan argument" with particular skill. Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis insisted that the 5ยข boost should be considered a "user fee," calculated to make those who drive on federally financed highways pay for their upkeep. The contention has some merit, but its real point was to avoid that awful word tax. Stockman countered by arguing that whatever it might be called, using a federal impost to finance repair work done by states and localities would violate Reagan's New Federalism concept. The President, however, recalled that as Governor of California he had agreed to an increase in the state gasoline tax that was rebated to localities. Said Reagan: "It didn't violate my basic principles then. Why should it now?"
Whether or not the decision was wise, the way in which it was reached illustrated a danger in Reagan's decision-making system: the President often gets a slightly skewed view of the world from his advisers, who present to him not the arguments they really believe but those that can be fitted into the Reagan cosmology. Stockman's true objection to the highway program had little to do with New Federalism; he believes that revenues from higher taxes (or "user fees") should be devoted to reducing the budget deficit rather than financing new spending. But he knew that argument would be ineffective with a President who was about to tell his Cabinet, "We have to recognize that in the short term we are going to be dealing with high deficits."
There are other reasons why Reagan frequently does not hear straight arguments from his aides. An avuncular figure, warm and generous to a fault, Reagan projects a peculiar quality of vulnerability. The White House staff and Cabinet members worry deeply when they have to tell the boss he is in trouble. One aide fretted for hours about the glum presentation that he was to make at one budget session. "I finally said the hell with it," he reports. "I decided if I couldn't tell it to him straight, I shouldn't be working here." Reagan was not visibly affected, but the aide still fears that he put his point too bluntly.
These problems, although they are pronounced in the Reagan Administration, are not unique to it: all able subordinates learn the trick of quoting the boss's own words back to him, and no President's advisers have ever relished bringing the chief bad news. But there is another difficulty that does seem somewhat peculiar to the Reagan White House: the President abhors conflict among his aides. Says Nancy: "He doesn't function well if there are tensions. He likes everybody to like one another and get along."
Reagan tolerates, and even encourages, dissent on policy so long as it is civilly voiced. But he hates to choose between views pushed hard by quarreling advisers. He prefers a consensus solution, which his aides do their best to provide.