Id served four years in the Carter Treasury but I hadnt had that much exposure in those years to the President. Did you have a lot of organizational responsibilities, or it was a going concern when you. You dont recall the specific occasion when you first met him? When we had the opportunity to sit down, our own leadershipyou mentioned Leon Panetta, for example, having been chosenand formulate a fresh set of estimates based on all the then latest data, and obviously reaching out to a whole host of experts, it became clear that the deficit outlook was considerably worse than we thought. It was quite an experience, in retrospect. I remember that vividly the day of the convention, the morning the convention ended, or maybe the morning after it ended. There were quite a few members where I had lead day-to-day responsibility. Did the portfolio members that you were approaching on NAFTA change from the work you were doing. Most of the people I mentioned, and Im sure Im forgetting a group of them, in fact, I know I am, but, I can recall getting slightly involved in debate preparationslightly now, not deeplyattending the debates, seeing drafts of speeches before he gave them, again, not all speeches, but certain speeches, that type of role. You didnt need to be a management consultant to see they werent well organized. So, to some extent, the President had put himself in a tough spot. I attended the little thing at Monticello when he was on his way to be inaugurated, the first time he stopped by in the bus. I want to be sure that there is a clear picture of that because he cant offer it himself. But it doesnt mention that he was President. We came into office, the trade imbalance of payments deficit with Japan had risen to very high levels. I dont really think Bentsen knew me at all. Sure, because you always focused on the swing votes. 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 want to come back to something that we had touched upon earlier, and that was this question about the administrations prioritizations, because you had suggested that there were some internal discussions, even at the time that NAFTA was taken on, as to what to do next. So I knew nothing about the substance of the Clinton case. Of course that depends on the moment in question. Concessions involving individual members of Congress could often be done at a lower level, depending on the magnitude of the concession. Bentsen had known the then head of it, Albert Casey, whod been chairman of American Airlines, and didnt have a high regard for him. Were you helping write drafts of Putting People First, platform areas? So I had that meeting with Clinton. Not at the outside, but eventually, I came into the second camp because I began to understand the scope of the issue. And Bentsen did make the call. Bentsen said, Youre going to ask for this, and youre going to get this, meaning that. This is a transcript of the interview, which you may watch here. I think part of him saw an embrace of NAFTA as an opportunity to reestablish that he was a person of conviction, that he wasnt just in the pocket of the old traditional Democratic constituencies, wasnt just a tax-raiser and spender. But that battle was resolved in favor of the revolution, the most sweeping alternative, and I dont really have a lot to add beyond whats been written. Of course, there was Leon Panetta, and Bob Rubin and Lloyd Bentsen, Alice Rivlin, Laura Tyson, myself, Gene Sperling, those were really the main members. The Treasury has a wonderful history of its own and a great deal of pride suffuses those halls. I talk to the President now from time to time with some frequency. There were people like Senator [Phil] Gramm saying it would usher in a new depression. Then late one afternoon, early evening I guess, 7 oclock, in the transition office in Washington, Warren Christopher called me. Secretary Bentsen didnt know about it but a lot of other people did, and nobody paid much attention to it. Clinton had one and in this instance, on the stimulus program, he should have listened to him. Id met Bentsen a few times. He knew how every member would vote. Did you have a sense on the Japanese policy that we actually had a policy or that we had something that was in lieu of policy? Things like, I cant remember what example we used, but Senator X voted for us because he was afraid hed have to have lunch with the President again, things like that. So that was the revelation, so to speak, that occurred that day. But, I can tell youa bit of a digression. 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. But the politics of the Btu tax, as compared to other types of energy taxes, were not well considered. 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. So if Clinton and Burns ever had any conversations, they certainly didnt communicate, Im sure. Everyone understood there was a lag factor. NAFTA has been successful. In fact, it was six months before. That was just how all Presidents should act. But with regard to deficit reduction. More has been made of that than should be. We knew each other, but we turned out to be the first two to go down and I dont know why that was. My view, theres no single answer to that at all, but if I were to list the elements of my response, the first one would be post-election. Education might be something in terms of opening. So there wasnt all that much time, maybe ten days, twelve days, between opening the office, showing up down there and then having the Treasury Secretary and the rest of the members of the economic team chosen. I recall, for example, a discussion at that very original dinner in the spring of 1991 and a rather focused discussion on economic policy, and particularly about deficit reduction. The phone rang and I was told by the Under Secretary for Enforcement that there had been a raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on a complex in Waco, Texas, which had gone terribly wrong. The period during which Bentsens views werent treated with quite enough respect was a very short one. There was a concern that wed spill all the rest of our blood on NAFTA and have nothing left. In general, no. 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. 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. And the reason he wasntnothing to do with Senator Kennedy himself. But part of our efforts were to get the Japanese to agree to certain pump-priming measures at home to lift domestic demand, increase the Japanese demand for imports, and better balance the current account relationship. As I remember, we gave that one to labor as a way to try to ease the pain, even though NAFTA called for that to happen. I dont know whether his Presidency will be seen as one of the most important or transformative in American history. Can you tell us a little bit about the second role? Wed sit around in the Roosevelt Room, and you know how it works. We know youre extremely busy. And deficit reduction was his top priority, a focus at the top? But in 1987, I think it was, the Democrats in this case, I must say, rewrote the rules and decided that ideology should be the grounds on which this was decided, and Mr. Bork may have had great credentials, may have been a scholar of great distinction but his ideology was unacceptable. Howard Paster at the White House, Mike Levy at the Treasury. I worked in the White House another three or four months, worked on, for example, the bailout of Washington, D.C., and then the passage of the new control board type legislation and then my kids got out of school in June. For example, out of that Tokyo summit, bilateral summit, Clinton, [Kiichi] Miyazawa, or whoever the Prime Minister was at the moment, came a commitment from the Japanese to lower their current account deficit from what I think was 2.5 percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] to less than 2 percent. It is especially important then for the people who worked with him to give us reflections on his role. The Times, which is typically, of course, a Democratic-leaning paper, was Clintons severest clinic throughout his whole Presidency, and on Whitewater went crazy. I thought that was pretty funny. The basic point was Ill focus on it, Ill get it moving. Its not as simple as that. Then of course, the Senate voted the next day and we only had 49 votes that we knew about and Senator Bob Kerrey was the undecided vote, the only one left. There was, I cant remember exactly, but we had some innumerable number of economists of all stripes and persuasions in favor of this. Thats just the way history works. Theyre already heavily taxed, its their money, not the governments money and all of that, and if it works, nobody will remember that I opposed it. Now I did not attend that, but the issue of the Presidents economic plan and whatever adjustments were going to be made and the efforts to push it forward were discussed, perhaps in most cases the number one item, at the senior staff meeting each day. But my guess is that those kinds of. Can you tell us about that? I remembered him of course, but I dont think he knew me. I never heard of them. Bentsen never lost an election, period, on which he was head of the ticket, ever. Can you tell us how you first got to know Bill Clinton? Yes, that was bad advice. Casey resigned and it was vacant. Its quite a difference and I ascribe it to the fact that she does not look at the world as, or at least in my experience, as solely and only politically. Bentsen had told me from the first moment this thing was going nowhere. You may remember that Clinton put forward a white paper, if I can call it that, called Putting People First, which came out I believe at the end of 1991. Is the existence of a war room something. @ 34.032138, -118.722249. But in any event, Madison Guaranty had failed. In any event, we didnt have a currency crisis at the time of that summit, or really didnt have one until the very middle, latter stages of the Clinton years. This giant controversy erupted over that. Carter had his famous Pond House meetings, and I went to a couple of those. Its a matter of record that I was not asked to resign, but Bentsen, a couple of weeks after the hearings were over, asked me, What do you really want to do? 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. During the transition period the question was, Who are we going to nominate the head the RTC? He may be forever seen in the middle. Stay as long as you can figure out how to cling to it. You recently saw Secretary John Snow in a very studied fashion talk about, make an effort to ease the dollar down, we saw that on two different occasions, and I know how these things work. Clinton made an error, didnt take it. So Japan arguably has been in a 12- or 14-year slump, but at that time the weakness in the Japanese economy was seen as just cyclical, not structural. My comment is a retrospective comment. There were so many different Japanese Prime Ministers in that period I cant remember which one we had at that moment. Well, I recall particularly how weak the field was. 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. and the period of time during whichtheres a window during which it had to be submitted for a vote. Not too much, though. So monetary policy has gone from being considerably more powerful than fiscal policy in 93, to being the only policy in town in 2003. I didnt, no. Those characteristics I thought were rather evident upon meeting him just a few times. And also, the opportunity to finally address what the real economic situation and fiscal situation was. This is a bit of an anecdote, but of course Joel Klein served in the Clinton administration. Who was the New York group that helped him with fundraising and maybe also with policy? So there were a couple of weeks of high anxiety, maybe more than that, maybe everybody was in a state of anxiety between the election and yes, it wasnt at all clear who the Secretary of Treasury would be. 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. Or was it just that you were persuaded that he was going to be a great candidate? There was a camp around that view. Im not an economist, so maybe Im making a bad assumption here, but was there a discussion at this time about when you could start feeling some benefits from this pain that you were asking the President to accept at a fairly early stage in his Presidency? Yes, we could have had that. Rubin was well known as an economic conservative, and Bentsen, of course, had a very long legislative record, which was in the same direction. Lets hold off if we can just a couple of minutes before getting into the transition period and let me ask you a couple of questions about the campaign itself. So by the time I had to do it again I wasnt particularly concerned. So they came in and interviewed him. But I think the most that the Fed can be expected to do is move short rates. If you think about his history, Bentsen had been a highly decorated war hero. The media to some degree has shifted for, in my view, simple generational reasons, to the right, and the right-of-center media is much more monolithic than the rest of the media, and so its ability to concentrate its opposition and its influence emerged as much greater during the Clinton years. You get there and then you figure out what your actual sequence of initiatives is going to be. Was it defined initially as a Democratic Party issue and Republicans were cut out, or how did that happen? Because the opponents had succeeded in changing the question, or framing the question, however you want to put it and that had taken hold in the country and the perception across the entire country, from North to South and so forth, was that this is nationalization of healthcare, which nobody in the United States favors. Those are my exact words. Dont ever talk down your currency; dont ever quarrel with the Federal Reserve Board. I cant recall my own platform, and as a result I really cant recall his. So an hour before the vote is when we heard that we probably had his vote. The Japanese economy was relatively weak at that time although it was in perhaps the first third of its now 12-year, or 14-year slump after the Nikkei peaked at 39,000. I believe Perots presence helped Clinton because Perot kept saying how messed up the country was, so that actually helped the challenger rather than the incumbent. Was there a perceivable influence from your perspective on having Perot in the campaign, making the deficit an issue from his vantage point? So this is the case where basically hes saying, My Presidency and this party are going to rise or fall based on whether we succeed in this or not. I started doing a lot of the same thing Id done on the economic plan: radio shows, television stuff, running around the country. The Clinton years were not in any respect unique from that point of view, but that partisanship for some reason or other seems to go in cycles and we just happen to come into office at a time when the cycle was moving up in terms of the scale of partisanship. At this point youre working on policy questions primarily? I dont know how many people would have the political courage to do that, but I know I wouldnt have. What external factors were at work here? There was a whole bunch of work going on on that but I was completely preoccupied with the Presidents economic program and trying to get it passed, not just during the war room period but before that. Then in the latter part of 93 I think, Whitewater began to surface, I think it was late 93. I wasnt there because I was an expert in tax policy. Sure. Bob Rubin talked with great credibility about the bond market responding, and James Carville was so amusing for so long afterwards saying he wanted to come back in his next life and be the bond market because everybody paid such fealty to it. So that the link in Clintons mind between deficit reduction and stimulus disappeared when it got into the political arena. Its curious to me, but thats how it worked. I, and quite a few other people, had dinner with him, quite a few meaning 15 or so. But that was about as specific as you can get. Sure. But the reason I remember it was that it was funereal. They had a very unsuccessful discussion, which resulted in name calling and cursing. She figured in some bumper stickers also. But youd been doing transition work for a month. President Clinton gave you the opportunity to serve your country, its a privilege to serve your country. The only reason I think it worked was Bob Rubin, who had the skill and the temperament to make it work. As I say, it was sort of a double-barrel summit. Thats true, yes. I was politically active, though. It was, in any normal historical context, yes, right of center because it focused on deficit reduction, tighter fiscal policy, more conservative budgeting. The Republicans in the Senate especially, led by Senator [Alfonse] DAmato who was Chairman of the Banking Committeeno, he was ranking minority member, became Chairman after the election of 94. How did the decision-making go about to decide on these different components of the package? Its fashionable for conservatives to say that the recovery had already begun on George H. W. Bushs watch and that if we just stood aside, the same results would have occurred, but those werent the economic forecasts we were looking at at the time, nor do I believe that school of thought to be accurate, but thats another matter. We believed that by maintaining the highest standards of excellence we could create a firm unlike any other in terms of capabilities to advise on highly complex strategic transactions, dedication to our client and our experience and professionalism. May I ask you if a part of the political calculus at the time was, Weve just come through a bruising battle with no Republican votes, weve got to do something to reach out and to reestablish better relations with a party thats not going anywhere over the next year, probably for the rest of the Presidency? He must have had enough of a political antenna to realize this was going to be a tough call in a Democratic constituency in Pennsylvania or Michigan. Anything in particular you recall that can flesh out the record? No, there were 20-22 people there. Were there other international issues that occupied your time at Treasury, significant slices of your time? Anyway, then Secretary Bentsen and I repaired to the little study off the White House, the two of us, just to watch the actual vote. Here we are in June 2003 and the election as we all know is November 04, so its 16 months or so before the election, 17 months, and right now of course, the campaign among the Democratic aspirants for the nomination is hot, full-bore, and has been for several months. Roger Altman, Evercore senior chairman and founder, joins Squawk on the Street to share his thoughts on Bidens infrastructure plan and the corporate tax debate. Altman gave And that kind of input isnt available during the campaign. I then had the brilliant ideaIm saying this, obviously sarcastically, that I should inform the White House what those procedural alternatives were. While at the University, So it was a very interesting dynamic. But the next day, Monday, I was on a plane to Waco, Texas. It was a very simple letter that was done up for me and I sent it to everybody saying, Just so you know, the RTC has only these procedural options in matters like this, and we will be reaching a decision on which of them to do before the statute of limitations expires. No. Its early 94 and the process on the healthcare initiative begins. There was. He must have wondered what he was doing. I dont question the sincerity of every opponent. So I said, Well then, thats the course Im going to take. I divided my time between the transition office and the Treasury. So he didnt have the luxury of saying, Lets do it a year from now, as you often do with other things. Anyone who does that indeed does not know what he is doing, and its the equivalent of Economic Policy 101. It was a priceless education in the way the Congress and all the surrounding politics really worked. How can you get more quantitative and specific than that? But as often happens, there is a moment when positions shift. Its mostly things I learned that dont work. In that regard, I would guess that your background on Wall Street was a big help in terms of talking with these members and having a rapport with them that they would feel comfortable with? I started getting inundated with letters from Congress asking how the RTC intended to handle this, stirred up by this Republican campaign. I do believe it was able to make a difference. He paid more attention to golf and girls in University. Then Marjorie made her famous walk to the well, with the Republicans serenading her, Bye, Bye Marjorie, but if theres a more dramatic moment that one can have in government service, at least if youre working in some sort of economic capacity, I cant think of it. I attended Georgetown University and I was a year ahead of him. The film director, known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized Scientist, architect, botanist, Copyright 2023. Id actually been politically active in high school, but my political involvements didnt extend beyond the campus. Is he going to become President? I have a very old-fashioned view about that. Clintons that way. I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that anyone who makes either of those mistakes, and I can think of others, will ultimately rue the day that he made them. Most of the people whod been involved in the economic plan or NAFTA for example, werent part of that. The President relied on Bentsen and Altman to take on some of his Administrations toughest tasks. On changes in the bill, unless they were truly minor, those were deliberated at the highest level. And, to some degree it was also, of course, for Clinton to take the measure of certain people he might be appointing. In the Carter administration, there was no real sense of what the Federal Reserve really was, what it did, how to deal with it. 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. 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. Tweet. Roger C. Altman is Founder and Senior Chairman of Evercore, which has become the most active independent investment bank in the world. That was my third or fourth trip, in 93. Right as it was up, the Wall Street Journal does a full-page profile on Bentsen, right here on the right. So he chose someone who not only had a great reputation and tremendous stature, but who could particularly help him with Congress, and it was a shrewd choice. Please. Was it Mickey Kantor? 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. Right off the bat in the administration, a group of us were deputized to try to lay the groundwork for a productive summit. Why a war room? Its not as easy. Then President Clinton went out on the balconythe front porch of the White House, on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, and had a press conference. Well, we were talking about lasting changes. I can vote against it, tell my constituents Ill never support a tax increase. I thought maybe we should step back and let you give us a more organized picture of what it is that you were doing with respect to U.S.-Japanese relations. One, the recession of 91 and early or mid 92, the economy was performing poorly. Was there a group of people who were helping him on the policy side respective to economics? Somebody was wrong. But the election result itself was anticlimactic. Thats something we dont have a lot of information about. Because if you decided not to go on NAFTA you really couldnt ever go back and say, Im a pro-trade President. I know the Congress and the Congress isnt going to buy it. It used to be, I believe, that they were graded on grounds of competent scholarship and so forth. 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. Clintons very first initiative was his stimulus program. I dont know who was, and some people say there werent any, but I wasnt, even though I was always described that way, always baffled me. The Office of Government Ethics came to its conclusion and the Treasury Inspector General as you know is an independent party and came to the same conclusions, the White House counsel came to the same conclusion. That wasnt a very long meeting. But Lloyd Bentsen was in that league, top five or six or seven. But thats an example of the type of stuff the Deputy Secretary does. You recall that can flesh out the record up by this Republican campaign which has become the most active investment. But Lloyd Bentsen was in that period I cant recall my own platform, and quite few... Process on the stimulus program, he should have listened to him drafts of Putting first., well then, thats the course roger altman house going to take move short rates I! 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