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He told me what would happen to the Clinton stimulus bill the day it was put forward. I thought he was finished. As I recall, Al Gore wanted it, cared a great deal about it, to some considerable degree got his way on it. Fourth, I recall that the economic forecasts for 93 were not very heartening. I take these observations, very astute observations, from people who live in this discipline. Some time around 1989 or so, Hillary Clinton went on the board. I doubt that youll see that. I would say that had probably as much to do with the onset of a partisan period as did the Andrews Air Force Base summit, but Im just playing amateur historian here. I think John Kennedys famous line about Jefferson applies because he had nine simultaneous careers, and the Presidency was only one. You asked me about Bentsen because of his unavailability. One of the reasons it was bloodless was because the Soviets knew what they had and didnt have and what we had and they didnt have. Then about three weeks later I was testifying as a regular matter on the RTC, I guess it was semiannual oversight hearings on the RTC, and Senator Gramm or Senator [Chris] Bond, Senator Gramm I think, asked me if Id had any contact with the White House about this whole matter. I was politically active, though. Its curious to me, but thats how it worked. By that time, Clinton had his idea of the middle-class tax cut, and he had his idea of cutting the deficit in half during his first term, I think it was. Was it his personality that won, or was he able to? Those characteristics I thought were rather evident upon meeting him just a few times. I want to ask you, was that a note that had been sounded with some emphasis as early as these very early meetings that you were talking about in 91? Now, it may last five or six more years, it may last 25 more years, I dont know. So I was going down to Waco, Texas. Thats just the way history works. But I didnt unilaterally choose all the members of it. So it became effectively a simultaneous multilateral and bilateral summit because it became the setting for Clintons direct discussions with the Japanese Prime Minister. Were you involved in that effort? I mean, not one encounter, until the early to mid 80s when I was quite involved in various aspects of the Democratic Party and there were a few forums at various places that I would attend and I would occasionally run into him. There werent many people in the administration who fully understood it. Abraham Lincoln saved the union. I was the class of 1967 and he was the class of 1968. Did you have to retestify when Starr took this over? There are extremes here. Now, maybe we caused that. I didnt say anything to that. Evercore uses cookies to give you the best experience on our website. But I mean, when you were sitting in the Roosevelt Room, where most of those meetings took place, all of the players were there. You never saw it. First of all, the Clinton White House wasnt really oriented to that. So I would get, from Mike Levy, typically, what my assignments were. So the experience of visiting these guys, some of whom were right on the edge, made tremendous impact on me. I dont know whether his Presidency will be seen as one of the most important or transformative in American history. Then we had the meeting downstairs in the Governors mansion, in a study or a library, the same room actually wed been meeting in on Putting People First a few months earlier. I could have mentioned a lot of other people, but Im just saying, I dont think that when President [George W.] BushI dont think that as people leave the Bush administration, theyre going to do that. After all, thered been only two Democratic Presidents in the last 25 or 30 years and theyd both been southern Governors. One, the recession of 91 and early or mid 92, the economy was performing poorly. Anyway, that was the high point, by far, of my own service, both in terms of the drama and the sense of having contributed something important. So its a free vote, ideologically and politically. Were still in the transition period, and now may be the appropriate time to talk about the process by which deficit reduction becomes a clear priority item over some of the other things that were talked about during the course of the campaign. He wanted me to go see Bentsen. That was quite a bit later. So those ideas were developed during the campaign. One is that it had a very rocky beginning in New Hampshire, and Im wondering if you have recollections about your reaction to the news events that occurred and to the electoral results in New Hampshire and how the President was able to deal with those things. That was great. We believed our model would attract the most talented senior finance professionals to our firm. Can you talk about Perots influence on the campaign? Clinton of course had committed to that during the campaign and it made fiscal sense in the sense of there being so much economic slack. That was a factor. As I recall the campaign of 1992, there were lots of policy debates amongst the Democrats. I think its a wonderfully illuminating story because it picks up on a strain Jim was asking about earlier with respect to Republican opposition. So its really a role that varies from Secretary to Secretary in terms of what that Secretary wants, and thats just a history of it. Was there a representative of the campaign. How did the decision-making go about to decide on these different components of the package? Clinton was here, and Mrs. Clinton. Im trying to get a sense of what their input to the whole process was. President Clinton gave you the opportunity to serve your country, its a privilege to serve your country. But in any event, there I was, and this guy, as I say, was a master of the game. Clinton chose in Bentsen, with the possible exception of [Robert] Dole, who obviously wasnt a candidate for this, the most experienced person in the entire United States Congress. No, this was in December. Bentsen had run for Congress at a very young age, successfully, was re-elected two or three times, then quit and went into business and was very successful in business. So that resulted in my having, I suppose, a jack-of-all-trades job. Why? Or should be, not will be, but should be. Which did he bond most closely with and were there instances where there were tough nuts for him to crack? One of the reasons why the ultimate votes on his economic plan were as close as they could possibly be, one vote in the House and tie vote in the Senate, was because he was dealing from weakness. Theres one thing about Clinton that I think is beyond debate, that hes a fabulous politician. By the end of the year it had become a massive issue. I stayed overnight, went back the next day. If Whitewater occurred today or there was some like set of issues surrounding President Bush and his past, I dont think thered be a single hearing about it. But you think that by January 20th, this basic division of the fundamental economic policy. Mr. Altman began his investment banking career at Lehman Brothers, advancing to general partner in 1974. That was the first thing I did. Yes I was asked to be part of that enterprise, but much later in the process. So that, despite the extraordinary achievement it really was, I think may be seen by history as a small achievement. I mean, I saw a lot of the two of them and I became quite friendly with Hillary, and by the time I left the administration was actually much more friendly with Hillary than I was with the President, even though ironically Id obviously known him first. Were there discussions in these early stages about the President being mismanaged, or was there a sense that this was somebody who couldnt manage himself? I can remember very well when Breaux and Boren offered Clinton that compromise, and Bentsen said, You should take it. It was sort of all-encompassing. I would actually like to hear you answer that question too. We wanted Japan to commit to rebalance the current account between the two countries, including committing itself to some pro-growth steps at home, and we wanted a specific agreement on autos and certain other things. That was just how all Presidents should act. I know this will sound quite strange, but Clinton was in some awe of Bentsen and a little bit of fear of Bentsen. I think my point is slightly different. My assumption is that you must have been doing that from two perches, your first perch being in the Treasury Department and then eventually the war room was opened up, and then you at some point were moved into the war room. It pains me to recognize that thats 35 years ago, but no, it wasnt the case. So the vote ended, Senate vote I mean, and we had that celebration. They all came to the same conclusions. Is this before the beginning of the year or. He knew what was possible; he knew what wasnt possible. To make a long story short, of course we all hired lawyers and so forth and we were brought before a grand jury. Clintons that way. The war room was very effective for Clinton, and of course, it was to some degree patterned after the war room in the campaign, which was then the object of an interesting film among other things. David Gergen was brought, which I think was probably the fall of 93 and Panetta replaced Mackthat was an awfully big event, of course. That was the all-time low for the dollar. Theres an interesting difference that always has struck everybody whos watched it up close, which is that she inspires fierce loyalty and he doesnt. I view that as a very unfortunate decision the Democrats made, but that was a new low, or a new high, however you look at it, in partisanship. But what actually turned out to happen was that each Cabinet officer, or at least many of them, came up with a list of favorite initiatives they wanted. By the time 94 was over, the Congress was in Republican hands. I traveled to Japan a lot on business. I thought of the RTC as the agency that was closing failed thrifts, assuming control of their assets, and disposing of those assets. Im an economist in the Brookings Institution in Washington. Then Clinton, as I mentioned, this one big event in January of 92Clinton was great on his feet. That certainly, in terms of social assistance to low-income working age people, that was a transformative administration. Most of the budget directors thus far, Alice Rivlin, Leon Panetta, Jack Lewwe spent a day with Larry Summers, a number of the political people as well, speechwriters and so forth. So he remained alive and, as we all know, recovered. And the difficulty became quickly evident once the program was laid out. Theodore Roosevelts name comes up occasionally as somebody that even Clinton himself had at least a temporary fixation on when he was evidently considering his own legacy as some one who took a progressive era, being a kind of rough approximation to the. We talked a little bit about the fundraising elements. But that was what one did as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. Well, it can be revived at any time, the Congress can just vote to revive it. We met for six or seven hours in the Governors mansion there. First of all, Clintonand I consider this a very important historical achievement, well see how it lastsmay turn out to have transformed the Democratic party. Scientist, architect, botanist, Copyright 2023. If I search my memory or some dusty file somewhere, I could probably come up with more names, but it was not a huge group. Bentsen was just a legend and Clinton had never served in Washington and Lloyd Bentsen was a king of Washington. Why didnt that work, from your perspective? But in retrospect he basically decided in his simple-minded way that he was going to grind the Soviet Union right into the dust, and he did. This is probably an unfair question, but Ill ask it anyway: did you know enough about his relationship with Hillary to know whether the political dimension was at work in his. I really believe it was that day that his view changed. Who was the New York group that helped him with fundraising and maybe also with policy? If Im not mistaken, we were looking at a $350 billion deficit, up from about $260 or something that we had been generally using during the campaign. He was quite in the minority at the time. I wouldnt necessarily accept that. There was a camp around that view. Youre referring to the environmental and labor side issues. But was it a battle? But apropos of my comments earlier that classic, unreconstructed liberalism had never been my cup of tea, I never identified with Mario Cuomo. But Clinton did care quite a bit about it. That wasnt a very long meeting. I just want to make one point. At best I had an input, and in some cases it was just obvious that some of these other folks had to be in it. Were there other international issues that occupied your time at Treasury, significant slices of your time? He is a trustee of MIT and serves on its Governance Committee. A lot of people wanted to work on Capitol Hill or think tanks or with interest groups. He served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury from 1977 to 1981 before returning to Lehman, where he later became co-head of overall investment banking as well as a member of the management committee and board. Tulip Brenner (Carol Burnett) tells off her sister-in-law (Peggy Ann Garner) in Robert Altman's "A Wedding." The entire economic team flew on a chartered plane down to Little Rock. The thing was televised, nonstop. He didnt like Clintons stimulus program. For the first part of the Clinton years, Arthur Burns was famously mystical, quite like Greenspan. And every day I would speak to Bentsen about it. Hed be speaking someplace and Id be playing some role at the same conference at one of the usual conference locations, and we would briefly renew the acquaintance, but I did not stay, in any organized way, in touch with him. Thats true, yes. So no, Bentsen did not go over to the White House, hang around, talk about legislative strategy. For example, keeping its currency weak, not taking some of the steps to improve domestic demand such that Japan could become a stronger force for imports into Japan, ironically some of the same issues that are just as present today. Bentsen, of course, didnt know the House as well as he knew the Senate, so it wasnt unusual that he himself wouldnt know in the House. During the transition period, you are formally involved in the transition effort. We just discussed one of them, which is the up cycle in partisanship, as I call it. A fairly major effort went into that, which I was part of. In fact, thats an important point. He was very impressive. I sat next to Mrs. Clinton at dinner. Whether you had disagreements with him or not, or felt warmly or less warmly toward him or not, he gave you the opportunity to do it, whether youre a Cabinet officer or anybody else. If we have another Iran-Contra therell have to be an independent counsel, thered have to be. Remember, youre playing for four years, youre not playing for one year. Somebody was wrong. I think Clinton authentically saw healthcare as more important, believed it was a bigger national problem, and thought he was tackling the bigger of the two. Clinton, as I mentioned before, held a series of marathon meetings, I recall that virtually all of them were on the Roosevelt Room, and they went on for four, five, six, seven hours, talking about possible elements of the economic program. The presumption of course at the beginning was that I knew what the substance of the investigation was, or what the actual issues were from an investigatory legal point of view, and that I had conveyed that to the White House, which was impossible by its turn, absolutely impossible, but in politics thats not often the important thing. I think as a general matter the perception, which has become the accepted wisdom, of those dueling camps, is much overstated. She inspired, continues to inspire, fierce loyalty and he doesnt. Well, I recall particularly how weak the field was. Did you stay in Little Rock for a while afterward? But in any event, Madison Guaranty had failed. Not likely, and was not the case in 92. But I dont really think that was the reason that he voted for it, but only an hour before the vote in the Senate did we know we had his vote. Ive seen it happen so often in business as well as in government. There was an acknowledgment, though, fairly early on that something needed to happen? For example, much has been made of the dueling camps, the deficit hawks versus the populists. A group of four of us were named at the same time: Bentsen, Rubin, [Leon] Panetta, and myself. So yes, the themes were in the State of the Union. You may not have been conscious of it. Im not joking. Youve been good to give us so much time. Became the setting for Clintons direct discussions with the Japanese Prime Minister much overstated take! Took roger altman house over years, I recall that the economic forecasts for 93 not. Met for six or seven hours in the Brookings Institution in Washington accepted wisdom, of we. 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Hes a fabulous politician your time been good to give us so much time roger altman house achievement.

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