But in any event, it hasnt ended with President Clintons leaving. I went down there one day, came back the next day. Greenspan sat next to Mrs. Clinton. I was completelyclean bill of health from the independent counsel. 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. Then, while the agreement called for there to be no further duties or tariffs or anything on everything, a whole variety of items were carved out in order to get certain votes. One of the things that you mentioned that was in your portfolio was selling the budget package. Bentsen managed himself with extraordinary skill. I dont know. Were you helping write drafts of Putting People First, platform areas? 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. But he did give a big speech about healthcare before NAFTA came to a vote, right, as I recall? He also had primary responsibility for Blackstones international business. Today, we serve a prominent and diverse set of clients and investors, including leading multinational corporations, large institutional investors and financial sponsors, and high net worth individuals. I mean, I could imagine that in your tenure, the perception might have been quite the reverse, but I dont know. Well, after the Presidents unveiling and before the war room, this pre-war room effort at selling, how was that coordinated? You were involved in the Little Rock Economic Summit? People trooped down and sat around and briefed Carter, but he was sitting there figuring out do I want to appoint this guy or that person, and so forth. I mean, it can be in private, it can be in print, it can be any other way. It was absolutely breathtaking, profoundly dramatic and unforgettable, absolutely unforgettable. Well, we were talking about lasting changes. Secondly, the National Economic Council would meet very often for purposes of reviewing where this stood; I was on that as a standing member. The contrast between Chicago, which was in an uproar at the time, and Georgetown couldnt have been more vivid. The great Presidents that you mentioned, the ones that loom large, as you said, are all crisis Presidents. I would say it had to do with an overall perception that he was the most substantive and the best politician. They were taking, to some degree, a thousand-year view. I made two trips to Little Rock. 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. I traveled to Japan a lot on business. He saw the opportunity, he seized it, went against the grain and, lets face it, presided over a period of unprecedented prosperity and balanced the budget for the first time in approximately 50 years. After all, his achievements, while in my view quite remarkable, may not be long lasting. Secretary Bentsen had already left. Roger Altman, chairman and founder at Evercore, discusses the state of the U.S. economy, the four things that need to be included in the next round of stimulus, and No, he doesnt, not in terms of the way I would define close friends, genuine friends. But most of my time was spent on legislation. Do you have any recollections of seeing anything different in him as a candidate at that point for that position? We began to have fundraisers toward the end of 91. So it quickly became apparent that some elements of the plan were going to face heavy sledding. So I did a lot of work representing the Treasury on any number of issues in the White House councils of deliberation. We founded Evercore in 1995, on the premise that clients would be best served by an investment banking firm free of the conflicts of interest inherent to large, multi-product financial institutions. Decided to do this. It wasnt trade; trade was not a big issue in the campaign. I think Bush inspires greater loyalty than Clinton, just does. Did you have to retestify when Starr took this over? All of us were very nervous, but Fiske ultimately ruled that there were no violations of the law. You say he didnt inspire fierce loyalty amongst a lot of his subordinates, but interestingly, I think a lot of the senior Cabinet members lasted a long time, I mean, they stayed for muchDonna Shalala was Secretary for eight years, Rubin was in for a long time, given the fact that his family didnt move to Washington. It wasnt difficult at all because Cuomo was a polarizing figure. I think it counts for four, five percent of the spending. 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. Ive never either been attracted to that approach nor felt that it was an effective one. As everybody knows, ultimately there was not a single Republican vote cast for it, neither in the House nor the Senate. By and large Bentsen talked to Clinton when Clinton called him.That was the way it worked. You never saw, one time, Bob Rubin do that, not one time, after he left. No, I went back the next day. I think Clinton recognized that, by virtue of his being an outsider in Washingtonhe never served in Washingtonhe needed a link to the Congress, a really superb link, of the type that Bentsen afforded, especially since Clintons first priorities were economics.The Senate Finance Committee was going to be, more than any other single place, where the action was. But it was not a novel idea at all. But, you know, its history, its participating right there in the actual, critical moment of history, and the sense of participating is very uplifting. So I would get, from Mike Levy, typically, what my assignments were. Yes. It got more organized as 92 unfolded. 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. We were both quite active in student government. He was shot eight times, mostly in the chest. I wasnt telling him anything he didnt know, God knows, but that we were going to enter now a different phase in terms of the laser light of press scrutiny on policies and that we had to deepen the entire effort, and there was agreement on that. Sure, Greenspan was in favor of deficit reduction, so when the administration came forward with an actual deficit reduction plan, which, as we all know, was a bit unexpected, Greenspan supported it, testified for it and so forth. Phil Gramm, Ill never forget, predicted that it would usher in a new depressionI mean depression, not recession. Youre an exception to this. There were quite a few members where I had lead day-to-day responsibility. Of course it was a very small kind of backwater type of situation, not a big one. I started having to respond with a standard boilerplate response to the effect that the RTC has these procedural options and we were choosing among them. It was a very unusual evening, because there was a sense, as I say, we were interring the candidate. He knew what was possible; he knew what wasnt possible. The following MondayI was out West actuallyI flew back to Washington and I believe I resigned on Wednesday. In other words, all the work that goes in before its actually sent to the Hill. I guess that again leads to the question about the uncertainty and anxiety of a transition period, trying to figure out which person. You were in Tokyo when the President went over? 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. There were ten or twelve or fourteen or fifteen, big numbers. Anyone who does that indeed does not know what he is doing, and its the equivalent of Economic Policy 101. We still joke about that today. Why was that a federal regulatory issue? Did it come from DAmato, or what? No, I had very little contact with Mr. Clinton for roughly 20 years after leaving. We were the easy solution for the press. For example, the Btu tax and the raising of the highest rate, highest bracket. Clinton had talked of course during the campaign about cutting the deficit in half during his first four years. The New York Times put it on the front page and this giant controversy erupted. As I say, we assembled sometime between the 20th and 25th of November in Washington and then December 5th or 6th or 7th or whatever it was he made his choices. 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. Can you tell us generally about your role during the general election campaign? 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? Very, I think, untoward behavior, myself. And I also think that theres a certain sense of loyalty among the people that are currently serving in this administration, which is more in keeping with tradition, than the Clinton folks, or many of them I should say, brought to it. Four agents had been killed and others seriously wounded and it was the worst loss of life in the history of the ATF in a single incident. Im not sure thats true or it isnt. So that was the revelation, so to speak, that occurred that day. Ill just go to the highlight reel, but reality is that on the day of the vote, we didnt think that we had the votes. Actually I delivered mine to great jocular reaction, but then Gene Sperling stood up and he talked about the ten reasons why this was a good bill. 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 didnt think much of the Btu tax. Not at the outside, but eventually, I came into the second camp because I began to understand the scope of the issue. Was there awareness at that time, I mean, in the perspective of 2003, I recognize the world looks different. He was a classic, in my book, excellent chief executive. Do you think that making this effort was driven by foreign policy considerations first and foremost, or was it genuinely an economic policy? I think the days for that have largely passed, I dont think members of Congress care much about that. I had known him just slightly. But my role was shaped largely by two things: one, Bentsen and what Bentsen wanted; and two, the fact that I had a reasonably close relationship with the White House. That certainly, in terms of social assistance to low-income working age people, that was a transformative administration. Clinton loves meetings like that. You see people scrambling to monopolize the left. Not necessarily. And I dont have any different set of reactions than anyone else watching the thing at the time. But I dont think Ive ever witnessed, I can only call it a hate campaign, or feeling of hate I guesswhether its a campaign or not I dont knowbut this intense animosity to Bill Clinton and to Hillary Clinton. So there was a lot of humor like that. No, it never got to a vote. The only thing that Id like to leave this on in respect to any follow-up is this: If at any point you dont think you have a clear picture of Lloyd Bentsens role, since he is not in a position to speak for himself, feel free to call me or talk to me further about that. So I felt very chastened by what Gene had said. That was just an amazing experience. We were all trotted out in Little Rock on the same day. Well, yes, Carter tried a version of that. I dont. Its worth asking. But wasnt the Clinton economic plan somewhat right-of-center too? You had some experience with Japan before? No, the rest of those were really in the purview, in the ambit of Larry Summers. Some of them I think were insincere, but many of them were sincere. 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. Some of them, yes. It was not as big a change as it was advertised to be, or has been seen historically. There was, I cant remember exactly, but we had some innumerable number of economists of all stripes and persuasions in favor of this. He loved it. In the end the answer was no, nothing, period. I would actually like to hear you answer that question too. Even at the end of 91 it was small and relatively unformed. Did you do anything else? We just discussed one of them, which is the up cycle in partisanship, as I call it. When the voting began, we did not know if we were going to win. I know the Congress and the Congress isnt going to buy it. The meetings became sort of a phenomenon and some people thought they were great because they were so inclusive and here we were having opportunities to spend hours with the President. Everyone understood there was a lag factor. Two questions, one of which was minor. In the very beginning it wasnt as availed of, as it quickly became availed of later. Which did he bond most closely with and were there instances where there were tough nuts for him to crack? I think our administration tried, as hard as it was possible to try, to change the dynamic of the U.S.-Japanese trade relationship. Evercore uses cookies to give you the best experience on our website. Lets face it, I mean, the highlight of that ticket was Bentsen in 1988. Id have to do a little homework. So he didnt say, I know Im going to lose all these folks, but Im going to do it anyway. He said, Its up to you. It was an all right agreement. The House voted first, and on the day of the House vote we didnt think we had the votes, or at least we thought the odds were too high that we would lose. Obviously Sam Rayburn. Were you involved in discussions at this point about what would be next in the queue for the administration, because there were some other.

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