Im not quite sure what their input was. No, it was not at all. I think thats a wonderful tradition. They all came to the same conclusions. Well, I recall particularly how weak the field was. It wasnt evident to me the day after New Hampshire that he had recovered from it. I would say we had a definite policy, we just didnt achieve too much of it. Our labor leadership did not want that, especially of course, the Teamsters. They were done among the United States, Mexico, and the Congressional parties involved. He was very disciplined and he went to bed at a certain time and he went home. When concessions needed to be made, this was before you get up too high, Russell referred to the point that deals had already been made. The country needs it, the Democratic Party needs it, I need it. But wasnt the Clinton economic plan somewhat right-of-center too? The Clinton stimulus plan just was not well conceived. Well, when we actually re-did Putting People First, we went to Little Rock and worked on it for a few days. I mean, Im raising some money now for one of the other candidates and the degree of difficulty today as compared to at the same point 91 wasnt any greater. Roger Altman, better known by her family name Roger Charles Altman, is a popular American Financial professional. It was the usual degree of difficulty that early, not really greater because he was from Arkansas. The notion, by the way, in Bob Woodwards book, The Agenda, that Greenspan was hovering over the proceedings like an angel of death is completely fictitious. Clinton gave his State of the Union address, the 28th of January, eight days after being inaugurated. Remember, I was there during the 1963-67 period. 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. It will be differences of style, differences of perception. Then when Ross Perot entereddeficit reduction was a theme of the [Paul] Tsongas campaign if I remember correctly; then later Ross Perot, entitlement reform, whatever that might mean; free trade and issues of economic relations with Japan; and I think one of the candidates[Bob] Kerrey?had a health insurance plank, is that right? But of course Republican support was sought. But you think that by January 20th, this basic division of the fundamental economic policy. But the program wasnt structured that would give you half a loaf, was it? I dont think this is what it really says, but I suppose in the distant lens of history, Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War. We were very explicit. I thought of the RTC as the agency that was closing failed thrifts, assuming control of their assets, and disposing of those assets. Yes, here in New York. There was a widespread sense that Japan was taking advantage of the relationshipin various ways. So we were not classmates, and we were not buddies in that sense, but we knew each other pretty well by standards of students who were not in the same year. Actually, as often happens in Washington, accounts of that testimony appeared in a lot of newspapers and mostly on page D20. I think everybody has a different calculation. I think at the Pond House meetings there were also some of the Congressional leaders, werent there? Do you have any recollections or observations about the President in that environment? I was politically active, though. I should have said I was either going to or not going to, but anywaySo that meeting came and went and at least nobody at the Treasury thought much about it. Yes, Putting People First was reissued, I believe it was June. But it coincided, I think more importantly than that, with the onset of huge political problems for Clinton in the context of Vince Foster, Whitewater, and the entire beginning of that. There was a stimulus package that dwindled, right? But I think the most that the Fed can be expected to do is move short rates. We had a macro economic task force. I was exposed to that, but I didnt have a particular say in it. Even at the end of 91 it was small and relatively unformed. Would I have considered moving to Switzerland if he did become President? Its early 94 and the process on the healthcare initiative begins. I spent the last couple of hours of that period in the Oval Office with the President and that was quite unforgettable too because the President was hugely animated, to some extent discouraged, to some extent angry, and there were moments when I was the only one in there with him. From that time forward, about 79 times out of 80 Clinton did whatever Bentsen said. We had a good discussion and I went back to the airport and flew home. We know youre extremely busy. I would say presided over, Id have to check the statistics, but probably the greatest period of economic prosperity in the entire century, or ushered in the greatest period of prosperity in the entire century. After all, John Kennedy is seen in the middle by historians. He talked about a middle-class tax cut and, of course getting the economy moving. Do you have the perception that there were some other instances where maybe this wasnt done? It wasnt going to be a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. 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. Youre referring to the environmental and labor side issues. No, I went back the next day. I know the Congress and the Congress isnt going to buy it. Clinton made an error, didnt take it. I went to Wall Street after the University of Chicago, and then after seven years on Wall Street, I went into the [Jimmy] Carter administration as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Only to a degree. No, I was responding to a question about economic policy. He has difficulty speaking. Which did he bond most closely with and were there instances where there were tough nuts for him to crack? Not particularly. There was no real reason for that, it was just fate, happenstance, just the case that not many of them did. I wasnt directly negotiating them. I think there were missed opportunities, yes; I dont believe they would have made a big difference however. Are you including in this the difference of approach between the campaign-oriented, the political people, and the policy people, as well as the differences among. I guess that again leads to the question about the uncertainty and anxiety of a transition period, trying to figure out which person. He didnt like Clintons stimulus program. 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. Oh sure, New York is, in terms of Democratic politics, not a terribly big town. There was an acknowledgment, though, fairly early on that something needed to happen? I dont think its wholly right becauseand this may sound strange coming from mePresident Reagan I think will be seen very favorably by historians, mostly because hell be seen as the man who ended the Cold War, and Reagan didnt have to take the position of aggressive anti-Soviet behavior, but he did. That was the moment, that day. But I really could never figure that out. It was after all largely negotiated by his predecessors, and yet he took a big gamble on that one, too, and thats sort of a kick in the midsection to a lot of his Democratic supporters. I have to tell my most famous Bentsen story because it really illustrates what an extraordinary person Bentsen was. That notion took hold at that meeting. I began to see on pickup trucks around Charlottesville, very soon after Clinton became President, Impeach Bill Clinton and I dont thinkI remember Impeach Earl Warren signs, Im that old. That was the all-time low for the dollar. I was not one who thought the whole idea of putting the First Lady in charge of this was somehow unsound and I always had good relations with Mrs. Clinton, so we communicated pretty well. So anyway, within a few days, all of us who had anything to do with the RTC from the point of view of the Treasury were subpoenaed by Fiske. I also think Clinton knew he was going to go up against some of his oldest allies, whether it was Marian Wright Edelman, whomever it was, in terms of welfare reform, and was prepared to do it, but wasnt really looking forward to it. The office on Vermont Avenue probably opened between two and three weeks thereafter, lets say, picking a time, the 25th of November, just guessing, 20th to 25th. In other words, Clinton believed that he could charm anyone if he wanted to and Bush believes the same thing. I stay in touch with him. But the burden of my question was it would be a lot of the people whod voted for the economic package that youre putting in this position, right? He is also a trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, serving on its finance committee. But its just one of those periods in Washington when partisanship is at a peak. 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. Definitely working on personnel. It was going to be a different kind of animal. It was quite an experience, in retrospect. I was defeated in my effort to become student body president, as, interestingly, was Clinton. But there was the issue of the Clintons association with it and the fact that Madison Guaranty had made loans to the actual Whitewater Development Company, and the question of whether those loans had been made under pressure from the Clintons and in fact whether [James] McDougal, who ran it, had defrauded the depositors in cahoots with the Clintons. Did you do any traveling with Clinton on the campaign around New York or outside of New York? I was the natural person to do that, having served in it before. So monetary policy has gone from being considerably more powerful than fiscal policy in 93, to being the only policy in town in 2003. But anyway, he was quite a character. some of these were extemporaneous, he had no notes, but he was quite an impressive speaker, I thought. I think it just evolved rather randomly that not many of those former Carter people got involved with Clinton. Its rare that an issue divides the Democrats. But I mean, when you were sitting in the Roosevelt Room, where most of those meetings took place, all of the players were there. He moved it to the center, made it the party of fiscal responsibilitywhoever would have believed that?and enabled the party to shed much of its old baggage. Lloyd Bentsens reputation preceded him and he was a master of the game as far as Washington and the legislative process and handling himself and so forth in a way that few ever have been. Bentsen had told me from the first moment this thing was going nowhere. It wasnt particularly formed before then. The entire economic team flew on a chartered plane down to Little Rock. Is the existence of a war room something. Thats how politics works. I think history will probably record that as the most important achievement of President Clintons overall Presidency, not the vote itself of course, but the ultimate effects of it. In retrospect, I think those are the two main reasons he embraced it. Clinton had talked of course during the campaign about cutting the deficit in half during his first four years. They began to mount quite a drumbeat of Republican outcry to the effect that it was the responsibility of the RTC to unilaterally extend that statute of limitations on the theory that it would be wrong to let the Clintons off the hook, and the RTC had the power to do that. You referred earlier to Garys question that most of the decisions that Clinton made about his priorities came post-election, but the process. Casey came to see Bentsen and essentially asked to be reappointed and Bentsen told him, No. In fact, Bernard and his late partner, George Katz, were both involved. Oh sure, sure, well have another major Presidential uproar. As far as healthcare versus welfare reform? Well, after the Presidents unveiling and before the war room, this pre-war room effort at selling, how was that coordinated? and I had no previous knowledge of it at all. Some of them, yes. You know, Clintons Presidency coincided with a lot of big changes in the body politic at large. So he was frantically calling members of Congress as various requests came in for him to do so. He did, that was the first State of the Union. Some of them I think were insincere, but many of them were sincere. You dont recall the specific occasion when you first met him? Then I came upstairs, Hillary was there. I direct the Presidential Oral History Program at the Miller Center. The politics of Oklahoma. So I knew a little bit about what was worth doing and what wasnt. The first thing that we typically do is a quick voice identification so that the transcriptionist will know whos talking at any given time.Im Russell Riley, the project leader for the Clinton Presidential History Project. I mean, obviously, if it came down to the crunch time, youre going to have the President call. Is it okay if we move away from the crisis of getting the big things through to just the more mundane ways that the government ran while you were there? So its clear that the idea about deficit reduction and fiscal policy takes root really during this transition. It wasnt how he said it, it was what he said. You might call it something different. But for reasons I dont fully understand, it goes in cycles, and we came into office at a time when an up cycle so to speak on partisanship was asserting itself. There had been a pre-election transition organization, and Im trying, Jim, to remember who headed up that operation. Altman ran the White House war room during last I knew what the ATF was, but not much more than that. In the Carter administration, there was no real sense of what the Federal Reserve really was, what it did, how to deal with it. So its also part of the Treasury tradition to do it that way. There are many people in the administration who dont like the welfare reform that was ultimately signed, believed that Clinton ultimately turned centrist on the issue and anybody could have done that and once you did it as a Democratic President, you were going to have welfare reform. Mickey Kantor was in charge of the famous Little Rock Economic Summit. So it wasnt invisible. I mean just the vote itself and the fact that not a single Republican voted for this, which even by its critics is seen now as having been at least a contributor to the economic prosperity and fiscal balance that later resulted. Then there was the other dynamic, which istheir personalities could not have been more different. Im sure there are numerous aspects of that that the administration given a chance would like to do over, to prepare better, and it was a team that didnt have a lot of legislative experience, although, in the case of Panetta and Bentsen, it had a couple of very strong elements. She figured in some bumper stickers also. So I watched the Senate vote, also on television, this time in the war room. So I knew we had a problem. But fundamentally, I was getting those assignments from the legislative staff. It wasnt difficult at all because Cuomo was a polarizing figure. Were there Republican members that he particularly relied on. No, two funny stories, Jim, dont let him off so easily. I know this will sound quite strange, but Clinton was in some awe of Bentsen and a little bit of fear of Bentsen. The President made a decision he was going toand he discussed this during the campaign at lengthbe more aggressive with Japan to have a fairer, more level playing field. Web446 Roger Altman Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO All Sports Entertainment News Archival Browse 446 roger altman It used to be, I believe, that they were graded on grounds of competent scholarship and so forth. I can recall David Halberstam on the way out saying to me that he never heard a politician as effective as Clinton since JFK [John Fitzgerald Kennedy]. But was it a battle? Sure. NAFTA had much broader support among the so-called or self-styled elites, the business leadership, all the economics community, the foreign policy establishment. We can go into that in a little more depth, the pure politics part of it. So we already had quite a taste of the Congressional dynamic and overall political dynamic. For example, a year later, the fall following my graduation, I attended the University of Chicago, which was perhaps more than any other university, except the University of Wisconsin, the center of SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] activity. I dont know this, but I suspect that was decided largely between the President and Mrs. Clinton. I mean, Lloyd Bentsen had been Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee for a long time, knew Alan Greenspan very well, knew the Fed very well. So I attribute that to just the fact that Woodward talked a lot to Greenspan, but that may be just an incorrect take on it. Most of the people whod been involved in the economic plan or NAFTA for example, werent part of that. But everybody felt such a part of it because they were sitting right there. It was quite a full-bore effort. Concessions involving individual members of Congress could often be done at a lower level, depending on the magnitude of the concession. That has historically been, or at least in the modern era, a successful approach. 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. Gene Sperling was in it. It was, in any normal historical context, yes, right of center because it focused on deficit reduction, tighter fiscal policy, more conservative budgeting. I wasnt involved in any of the delegate-related strategies, no. Its not as easy. Clinton had his own style of charm and Bush has a little bit different style, but not very different. You know, Bushs approach to international diplomacy is, Here are my buddiesall of whom he seems to nickname. One of the things that you mentioned that was in your portfolio was selling the budget package. More has been made of that than should be. Now, of course, as far as working the Hill was concerned, I would take my cues from the constant and joint planning of the White House and Treasury legislative liaison staffs. Did you have a lot of organizational responsibilities, or it was a going concern when you. I was often at the National Economic Council meetings that deliberated on those. I think it counts for four, five percent of the spending. I do recall some rushed discussions at the very end about what we do now and how we flesh out his policies, and I can recall talking to George Stephanopoulos the morning the convention ended about certain steps we were going to take now in terms of getting better organized on policy development and issues. When it came to responding within the same news cycle to an allegation or some criticism of the program, we were able to respond immediately, and rapid response became a part of the political lexicon. 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