There were so many exceptions and carve-outs and so forth from the final bill that you couldnt count them. WebRoger Ebert March 07, 1978. Or was it just that you were persuaded that he was going to be a great candidate? Clinton had in fact been working on Capitol Hill during this time and I guess I was just trying to get a sense about whether that was unusual. You were both involved then in student government. Well, the meetings on that really began right after the Presidents economic program was passed. The process was really quite intense and they were taking on a task that was utterly immense, a much bigger one really than the economic program, and came forth with a plan that was revolutionary, but whose revolutionariness doomed it. But, no, they couldnt have been more cooperative. Its a strong field. That has historically been, or at least in the modern era, a successful approach. Theres also an institutional dimension to the atmosphere in Washington thats very important and distinguishes the current situation from the situation in which you governed, and that is the existence of an independent counsel. NAFTA had much broader support among the so-called or self-styled elites, the business leadership, all the economics community, the foreign policy establishment. But from the outside, one of the notable departures of that administration, and I think it began very early, was the cordial deference paid toward the Federal Reserve Board. Twofold. No, he doesnt, not in terms of the way I would define close friends, genuine friends. But thats the type of thing the Deputy Secretary sometimes does, or when there are problems with the IRS. But its just one of those periods in Washington when partisanship is at a peak. No I dont. Every imaginable issue arose and Clinton hit all those balls out of the park and it gave the American public a chance to see how astonishingly smart and deep this guy was. President Clinton gave you the opportunity to serve your country, its a privilege to serve your country. After all, thered been only two Democratic Presidents in the last 25 or 30 years and theyd both been southern Governors. There was very little interest in that. I remember Allen going through that. No, first of all, it wasnt his focus. So the question naturally arises, was it his economics? I recall taking maybe one or two trips with him outside New York, mostly just for my own enjoyment, to see what it was like. But in any event, what gets discussed most in the campaign historically may or may not be the first or second major initiative that comes from the new President. Thats why I wonder whether there was some kind of perception, outside. But you know, theres a real sense of the torch passing and history, and one had to be struck, even though Id been involved with Clinton from mid 91, by the youth and vigor that Clinton and Gore exuded, and Ive always personally liked the south, so I enjoyed being there, so I did go. One of the things that you mentioned that was in your portfolio was selling the budget package. If Im not mistaken, Paul Tsongas won New Hampshire? Exactly. We came into office, the trade imbalance of payments deficit with Japan had risen to very high levels. So two points: one, I support what the President did and I think he deserves a lot of credit for it. We just kept the pressure on the best we could. In the last 48 or 72 hours, because that vote was also a cliffhanger, although not as close. Second of all, I am not a classic liberal, so Ive thought for 20 or 25 years that classic 60s liberalism was the wrong way to go. Well, I was thinking of both actually, but in the bill. So heres a person who knew how to manage himself. He was a classic, in my book, excellent chief executive. Can you tell us generally about your role during the general election campaign? It wasnt going to be a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. [Mikhail] Gorbachev was an enormous free gift to Ronald Reagan. Nothing, zero, never did, never would have. I wasnt making a distinction between Clinton and his predecessors, but rather making a distinction between Clinton and his successors since there wont be any more. Nobody knew, especially in the White House. Of course Mack McLarty was there and all theif I can call them factionswere represented. Theyre going to ask you about it, say nothing. First of all, the Clinton White House wasnt really oriented to that. Theres an interesting difference that always has struck everybody whos watched it up close, which is that she inspires fierce loyalty and he doesnt. He was fully free to say no to that. Those would be the main points Id mention. And we had the same in the Carter administration, but it had been more junior. They were done among the United States, Mexico, and the Congressional parties involved. I mean, he seemed to be quite consistent about that, even though the rest of the field was, as I recall, quite a bit more protectionist. 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. I was onboard before then, but at the end of 1991 it would have been Bob Rubin, Ken Brody, me, Stan Shuman. Of course he has those who get invited to his ranch and those who dont. For example, Putting People First was reissued, I believe in June of 92. So theres no reporting responsibility, its treated as one office, a little bit like a corporate office of the chairman which includes the chairman, and the CEO, and the President and chief operating officer, and maybe even one or two others. He observed to me right off the bat that this was going to be very complicated and no cakewalk, right off the bat. He had a certain way of carrying himself and a certain sense of very carefully managing his own stature. Actually it was mundane. 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. You didnt have to spend a lot of time with Lloyd Bentsen to know that he wasnt going to be shunted aside. That was not a high point of the Clinton Presidency. 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. Welfare reform is a different issue, though. So those ideas were developed during the campaign. The reason it didnt succeed a lot more than that is because its really macro factors that drive this. 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. We were both quite active in student government. 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. No, I dont remember the actual moment when we met. What was going on? I think I called that evening. I was elected twice vice president of my class. Do you remember your impressions of Clinton as an undergraduate? But Clinton really got into it. They werent really involved in the doing of the plan. 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. 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. Again, I had the benefit of Lloyd Bentsens views. The type of student attending each school at the time. But youd been doing transition work for a month. 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. Certainly, when he captained it, it was a different party than it had been for the previous 50 years. I guess I probably began to help raise money, its a rough memory now, in the early fall, perhaps September of 91. Web(Studio: Charles Gibson) Earlier interview held with Evercore Partners Roger Altman about the House vote and the market reaction. By that time, Clinton had his idea of the middle-class tax cut, and he had his idea of cutting the deficit in half during his first term, I think it was. Do you have anyyou were sort of one of the casualties of this campaign, but was the Whitewater thing separate from this hate stuff? The entire gamut. Ive seen it happen so often in business as well as in government. Theres a time lag between taking painful steps to do something with the deficit and getting some response in the. 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. Its actually enjoyable, its fun. Well, I dont recommend you have that experience, but once youve done it, you know what it is. 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. In all aspects? He earned an A.B. So I watched the Senate vote, also on television, this time in the war room. Everyone understood there was a lag factor. I would say that had probably as much to do with the onset of a partisan period as did the Andrews Air Force Base summit, but Im just playing amateur historian here. I said to him, If I should resign, then thats what I want to do. Andrew Garfield presented the Robert Altman Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards to his old friend, Fran Kranz, for his film Mass. On the policy issues at this point are you beginning to see any kind of evolution or any kind of establishment of governing priorities, or again, is this a question thats held off on until after the election? 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. It was sort of all-encompassing. I mean, not to take any credit away from other players, you wouldnt want to do that Im sure, but there must have been some. When we then proceeded on NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], which was the next very dramatic moment.

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