Well, it was just a strange evening. You become President, theres a new Congress. That was just how all Presidents should act. But my guess is that those kinds of. So the swing votes were the object of our attention. Then the President spoke to Kerrey. I think any President who is either fortunate enough or skillful enough to preside over a period of peace, at least as far as American soil and American forces are concerned, deserves credit either for his good luck or his skill. That was the first time we had an opposition takeover. Because if you decided not to go on NAFTA you really couldnt ever go back and say, Im a pro-trade President. I referred to the Bert Lance affair when I was serving the Clinton administration, and in that case the controller of the currency, who is an independent regulator, was charged with looking into it and delivered a report that ultimately proved to be Bert Lances downfall. It will be differences of style, differences of perception. Lloyd Bentsen was the very first person we tried when this whole project started, on the urging also of Clintons people because of his age, and they didnt know at that time that he was as ill as he was. Please. So I knew we had a problem. This was breaking news, CNN [Cable News Network] was interrupting its programming and so forth and President Clinton said, What is this about? We were very explicit. I think though, if I can repeat myself once, I finished reading a few months ago a marvelous biography of TR [Theodore Roosevelt], the second volume of Edmund Morris work. Sometimes without him and sometimes with him, but if Mrs. Clinton was there, everybody else was. She may have had a lot of influence on it, but I didnt see her. It was, in any normal historical context, yes, right of center because it focused on deficit reduction, tighter fiscal policy, more conservative budgeting. What did you mean when you said, I knew how not to do it? Altman Thats true, yes. My own view on that is that American history is filled with examples of severe and indeed brutal partisanship. Yes. That was not well known to me at the time. I think its a combination of several things. He was not confronted with a grave crisis, but I think history will treat him very well, because essentially. Well, it can be revived at any time, the Congress can just vote to revive it. Its actually enjoyable, its fun. Everybody gets a nametag, and theres the Secretary of the Treasury, the Deputy Secretary of this and Director of OMB, and youre all sitting around, a very staged setting. So the dynamic between the two was quite an interesting dynamic and quite quicklyto come to your pointafter the stimulus plan went down, Clinton began deferring to Bentsen on everything. The film director, known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized So my average day was spent a few blocks from here, working full-tilt on the business responsibilities I had. Was this your first opportunity? More in terms of ostracism from your former colleagues. That was just an amazing experience. You were both involved then in student government. I also learned that when I saw that, it wasnt likely to ultimately succeed. But there was a divide, so to speak, in the administration between those who felt that we should try to remake the healthcare system in this country in one fell swoop and those who felt we should pursue an incremental approach. So the traditional Democratic field has had in it a few candidates who represent that. But the key revelation was the most stimulative thing we could do for this economy is to induce a monetary response. and he said, No. Im not sure anyone is ever going to pay a penalty in American society for that type of commentary. The American political system has changed a lot. 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? The most frantic imaginable effort was going on during the five or six hours preceding that vote. The bigger gamble then was, as you say, the long term, the response in the long-term credit markets, whats going to happen, and that, I take it, is where Allen Blinders. My point is that if one was a Republican in 93, one could say, Okay, Im going to vote against this so Im not on record of favoring any kind of tax increase, and that protects me politically and if that works out, I dont lose anything, so Im politically immunized. The assessment was correct because, I cant recall the size of the economy then, but today it is about $10.7 trillion. Is the existence of a war room something. But you think that by January 20th, this basic division of the fundamental economic policy. I thought, All right, well get half a loaf. This would have been before you were in the transition office? Mexico was looking for the freedom for its trucks to cross the border and continue to deliver in the United States. You never saw it. Then late one afternoon, early evening I guess, 7 oclock, in the transition office in Washington, Warren Christopher called me. As has been, as I said, so widely chronicled, the focus was on the economy because the economy was sluggish, in a recessionary state. So those two circumstances are important as a starting point, the second one especially, because wed been assuming a certain deficit problem, and upon fresh review, it turned out to be much worse. I recall reading in one account that Clinton had worked on a kind of unusual cluster of issues as a candidate for student body president at the time. But before then, somebody was charged with thinking about transitional issues, actually before the November election, and my question to you is whether, in your work in Treasury transition, you had relied on any work that had been done before? The RTC had to choose between allowing the statute of limitationsto expire; filing charges, criminal charges; or, as often happens, entering into a so-called tolling agreement, where if youre the party under investigation, you voluntarily agree that the RTC can circumvent the statute of limitations because you believe that if they have more time theyll ultimately decide to exonerate you and you dont want them to be forced to make a decision about filing or not filing charges. I got involved in certain aspects of preparing it, editing it, fine-tuning it, I recall that. There are some people who wouldsome of the George H. W. Bush people date the partisanship from the budget deal. Any particular memories from that successful trip? He loved it. Its very puzzling to me how that could happen when the man had such an obvious gift for feeling peoples pain and a very strong public presence. My opponent is distracted by international and other matters. Lets recast the question a bit. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday interviewed investment banker Roger Altman, a former Treasury official, as a candidate to replace So its clear that the idea about deficit reduction and fiscal policy takes root really during this transition. It began to get organized at the end of 91. How difficult was it to do what you were doing in an environment where Mario Cuomo was sort of floating around trying to figure out. He was a classic, in my book, excellent chief executive. For example, much has been made of the dueling camps, the deficit hawks versus the populists. Any meaningful change in the bill, particularly if were talking about the last month or two, was only done with the approval of the President. So we already had quite a taste of the Congressional dynamic and overall political dynamic. And that kind of input isnt available during the campaign. No, not at all. It was the best political speech, with a couple of exceptions, Id ever heard, which prompted a wonderful comment from former President Bush, who then came to the microphone and said, Now I know why Im on the outside looking in. Im not joking. It really wasnt that way. There just wasnt a candidate who had the capability to do that. There are too many people in his own administration, at least at the moment, who think that all he finally did was succumb to the Republican position, and anybody who wore a D on his shirt and supported the Republican position could have brought along enough Ds to make the bill happen. And the field against which Clinton ultimately competed was not a strong field. Eventually they did, but it wasnt because of this agreement, big macro forces had them do it. She wasnt a participant in those. So Ira was, to some degree, as youve read thousands of times, off in the corner doing this whole plan. I dont recall having a meaningful role at the convention. His view was, I want to pick good people and let them do their jobs. Was there anything particular in his record in Arkansas that became sticking points with people in the community that you were attempting to raise money from? I think there were missed opportunities, yes; I dont believe they would have made a big difference however. No. That was the day the earth moved and Clintons view changed. Wed sit around in the Roosevelt Room, and you know how it works. And trade was one of Clintons priorities and of course NAFTA was followed by a series of other trade agreements, GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] and so forth. First of all, the Clinton White House wasnt really oriented to that. Now we became aware pretty early that there were some real problems with this proposal. And presided over eight years of peace. Thats just the way history works. So obviously by inauguration day hed largely assimilated them. 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. For example, I said earlier, the National Economic Council is not a new idea at all, that the Ford administration had its version, Nixon had his version, and so forth. Well, we were talking about lasting changes. And Bentsen did make the call. One of the initial ideas was an energy tax. I follow it pretty closely, and I have a hard time figuring it out. But it wasnt clear that he was going to do so until not long before he did. Bentsen had known the then head of it, Albert Casey, whod been chairman of American Airlines, and didnt have a high regard for him. Youd seen him working with domestic policy issues and with members of Congress and support here. We had to be sure Mexico could live with it. You dont recall the specific occasion when you first met him? I taught at Georgetown for a little while, and the distinguishing features of the students that I would have had ten or twelve years ago were that they had a high degree of interest in national and international politics. We had a macro economic task force. People forget that, even today. Phil Gramm, Ill never forget, predicted that it would usher in a new depressionI mean depression, not recession. 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. But there sure was a lot of effort going into it. I mean, Republicans are opposing it because its tax and spend, the President is upset about it because its Wall Street economics. It was a few votes, not one vote. I hadnt been parachuted in from some distant spot without any such relations. As I recall, the distinctive thing about Clinton, if everyone had one courageous stand, his was on free trade. She figured in some bumper stickers also. Did you think that they took those claims seriously, or was this pure politics? He said, What do you want to do? In the end the answer was no, nothing, period. Im just saying the Japanese side very much viewed it as a zero-sum game, therefore anything we got was, from their point of view, giving up something. In part, there was a sectoral approach. He was quite in the minority at the time. He gave the best speech I, at least to that point, had ever heard him give, and I think almost everyone in the administration who was in the room felt the same way. By the way, in any matter where the statute of limitations was about to expire, there was nothing specific about the Madison matter that was any different. So a group of us at the deputy level, Joan Spero, Charlene Barshefsky, Bo Cutter, me, who were the four senior members of that group, started entering into discussions with our Japanese counterparts. It was killed when Senator [Donald] Riegle, the chairman of the Banking Committee, announced that he would oppose it, so that was the end of that. I was often at the National Economic Council meetings that deliberated on those. By that time we were all being treated very well by the campaign because we were seen as the guys who were there at the beginning. Those meetings were, at one level, rather riveting, but at another level they were disorganized. Hed been in office a month or two, defeated by a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats, and that was many months before the fateful votes on the economic plan. Were you making recommendations to him about how you might tighten things up in this area? My testimony was rather a highlight of that. The administration made a change in the way economic policy-making was going to be made too, and I think that choice was made during the transition to have a National Economic Council, and that would have been a great unknown given the Treasurys historical role in economic policy-making. I went back to the airport in Austin, reported that to Warren Christopher, and I think we were all announced within a week. Well, yes, Carter tried a version of that. You know, the only other thought I would express on this is, despite the drama of the moment and the stakes, everyone, as they say, puts on his pants one leg at a time. I came to respect Dole a lot through Bentsen. Did he come to you with an idea about what he wanted to focus on with the economy or some of his primary domestic policies, or was this at this point still in the process of being formulated? Were there any members in particular with whom you worked directly that you felt you were personally responsible for salvaging? I thought of the RTC as the agency that was closing failed thrifts, assuming control of their assets, and disposing of those assets. 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. 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. But its interesting to put it into perspective. By and large, most of the members of the Finance Committee in the Senate and the Ways and Means Committee in the House. She herself has expressed regret over them. 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