I stayed down there for a day and a half, maybe 24 hours. But its just a reality that in an economy of that size, spending changes arent going to have much effect on the economy; monetary changes can. No. Yes, but the independent counsel is not a Clinton-era novelty. President Bush was very vulnerable, and so Clinton was attacking on the economy and basically saying, if you remember, this rather famous line, he was going to focus like a laser on the economy. It was excellent. Was it his personality? That was the day the earth moved and Clintons view changed. 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. How did the second transition compare with that first one in terms of cooperativeness, in terms of being organized and. I suppose you could have strengthening of the yen, coordinated G7 action to do that. We were tough on them on autos. He must have wondered what he was doing. Why didnt that work, from your perspective? No, two funny stories, Jim, dont let him off so easily. And there were obviously a whole host of people who were against it from day one and you werent going to change anybodys mind in the latter category. 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. President Clinton, Democrat, nominated a Republican to this job and the Democrats defeated his nomination. Theyre going to ask you about it, say nothing. I think it was obvious to Clinton that there were several serious people there in New York whose support he wanted to get who felt strongly about what I would call a centrist economic policy, perhaps right of center economic policy. WebNot only are 10% of the U.S. House and Senate Jesuit-trained from Georgetown, but so are many of the world's political leaders, which should have you asking What are they really up to?" But as to whether it was an innovation, I doubt it. I appreciate that and I think youve done us a big favor today by illuminating that. There were not pitched battles. I can vote against it, tell my constituents Ill never support a tax increase. It occurred around 96, 97, but in the early stages of the Clinton years we didnt have a currency crisis. There were some folks from the White House Press Secretarys office who were in it. Some of the things on the wish list made a lot of sense, but some of them didnt. He talked about a middle-class tax cut and, of course getting the economy moving. This wont help you because its not very original, but theres something about President Clinton that had the effect of rubbing salt on a wound as far as his opponents were concerned. Is that a fair assessment? There were probably 25 major separate deals negotiated to win the passage. 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. It was an astounding speech. 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. He did quite well. 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. Its rare that an issue divides the Democrats. Well, it can be revived at any time, the Congress can just vote to revive it. Actually the bigger debate was over what came after NAFTA, welfare reform or healthcare. Well, it was just a strange evening. No, first of all, it wasnt his focus. You asked me when the most important policy development occurred and I would say there are several answers to that but number one would be post election, not pre-election. Thats just exactly what I said. There were, however, many people who thought, I would say this was the majority view: well ask for this, were going to end up with this. Because Clinton very shrewdly realized the respective strengths of Bentsen and Rubin and put each in the right job. They especially resented the role that Hillary played. Yes. I think his views at that point were in formation. You might call it something different. Well, after the Presidents unveiling and before the war room, this pre-war room effort at selling, how was that coordinated? I consider that another important legacy, since not that many Presidents of the 20th century have it. I was onboard before then, but at the end of 1991 it would have been Bob Rubin, Ken Brody, me, Stan Shuman. If we have another Iran-Contra therell have to be an independent counsel, thered have to be. I think if Edmund Morris were writing with that skill about the Clinton years, hed have a whole chapter on the vote on this plan. 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. So Clinton wisely determined that this was something that Bentsen ultimately had to make the call on. Id met Bentsen a few times. Well, it was also a surprise to many in the administration because the truth is, the fight over the economic plan took every ounce of energy that everyone had and attention didnt really turn to NAFTA until that was over, and that was over in August. But that was fairly brief, though. You know, you call in for five minutes apiece and theyre all lined up. Ill never forget, I went in to see one of them whod been shot eight times. I wasnt there because I was an expert in tax policy. There were certain others, I cant recall now, but a group of six or eight or nine, and we literally sat around with pieces of paper and drafts and hammered it out. Chicago, of course, always has been, and they attracted very different students. That was in July or June or something. But wasnt the Clinton economic plan somewhat right-of-center too? Youre working on prospective personnel issues? It wasnt difficult. 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. Altman gave So yes, the themes were in the State of the Union. So I wasnt sure what was going to happen, but there was no one in the field that was suddenly squashing everyone else including Clinton. Yes, he did. You look at the relationships he ended up having with a lot of people that he was initially close to and were central to his administration, whether its George Stephanopoulos or whoever else it may be. We were the easy solution for the press. Hes pointing to the right-hand column of theWall Street Journal. Yes. I didnt feel it because I had a long relationship with Bob Rubin, which had been ten or 12 or 14 years, and Bentsen and Rubin had had their own long relationship and I saw no real problem with everybody relating successfully to each other. I wasnt directly negotiating them. Altman Thats true, yes. Im very fond of her, extremely fond of her, and it was, Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. [Mary Todd] Lincoln? Two questions, one of which was minor. Then, as the weeks and months went by, it came closer and closer and closer to whip counts. The great Presidents that you mentioned, the ones that loom large, as you said, are all crisis Presidents. But there was the sense, based on conversationsI think you could go back and say that there were some discussions between Bentsen and Greenspan, Rubin and Greenspan, Clinton and Greenspan, although the sum total of those conversations probably took an hour. Clinton gave his State of the Union address, the 28th of January, eight days after being inaugurated. Who was the coordinator, if any, in the first follow up? 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. Yes, and Im sure that any number of opponents to the Presidents plan were sincere in their expectation that it wouldnt work. I have no evidence, and I think I would have had, that he went into that meeting with the expectation that hed come out the way he did. So obviously by inauguration day hed largely assimilated them. We had lunch. Did you ever get the sense that there were some people who mystified him? Well help you over here We didnt have to have the President do every one of those. I liked him and we had a certain history together, and I was strongly of the view that it was time to get the Republican Party out of the White House after 12 years. I said to him, If I should resign, then thats what I want to do. And the difficulty became quickly evident once the program was laid out. If anything comes to mind that we havent talked about, that youd like to have included. I was the class of 1967 and he was the class of 1968. Toward the middle and latter stages they met everyday. I know Bentsen, especially in retrospect I know Bentsen. But it really was quite effective because one needed a military-like approach with only five or six weeks to go, and that bill was in trouble. Actually, each White House that I was familiar with had its own version of what we called the National Economic Council, and if you look back for example, during the Nixon and Ford administrations, they had something quite similar. 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. Then, in 1995, he formed Evercore. Richard Nixon resigned from office. We can go into that in a little more depth, the pure politics part of it. It is especially important then for the people who worked with him to give us reflections on his role. There was a widespread sense that Japan was taking advantage of the relationshipin various ways. So it was just a very unusual evening. I think. As far as healthcare versus welfare reform? That approach hasnt been able to capture a majority of the American public for 40 years and I dont think its going to capture the majority of the American public for another 40 years. For some people the idea was, a southern Governor almost by definition has a better chance than a lot of other candidates. 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. Whatever was going on on the deck of the Titanic was comparable, but it was absolutely frantic and incredibly dramatic and tense. He could have just been rhetorically difficult about it and kind of accepted the fact that were steady as she goes on the Cold War, and he didnt. My memory is a bit fuzzy on that. Of course he has those who get invited to his ranch and those who dont. First of all, the Clinton White House wasnt really oriented to that. Senator Kennedy was for it from day one. 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. Yes, to some degree. So there was not a war of the type that has so often been written about, just not true. Is he somebody who, from your perception, makes close friends at all? Im not sure it makes entire sense, however, to judge or to assess a Presidents contribution by the standard of those who are given, in effect, a free gift of power to deal with a crisis. Im not the best witness on that because I didnt see it or feel it, but there may well have been. 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. Pretty difficult to make major progress in that context. Youd worked in a couple of campaigns before this one, or youd been involved in campaigns. Well, I recall particularly how weak the field was. How difficult was it to raise money in the environment, Cuomo aside, just for somebody who had been a Governor of Arkansas in a campaign season when theres. Malibu, California (CA), US. 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. But I mean, when you were sitting in the Roosevelt Room, where most of those meetings took place, all of the players were there. This would have been before you were in the transition office? There was also a whole series of other investigations undertaken at the same time, one by the Office of Government Ethics, one by the Treasury Inspector General, one by the Office of White House Counsel. Im Jim Young. Clinton had one and in this instance, on the stimulus program, he should have listened to him. Those carve-outs were all done on a tripartite basis. 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. But Clinton went for it, Clinton listened, Clinton deserves tremendous credit. Did you get the sense that this is true? No admission fee, no contribution required. 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. You say you knew Rubin well, but did you have a sense that in the other places where economic policy-making is made there was ever any tension over this kind of an arrangement? Thats the way to do it. Remember, President Clintons first initiative, the stimulus plan, was defeated. He is a trustee of MIT and serves on its Governance Committee. 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. Can you tell us about how that unfolded, your perceptions of Mrs. Clintons role in all of this? It was a voluntary choice. 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. Do you think any of those are due to the sort of pressure. 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