RIVLIN:RIVLIN:
Alice Rivlin today (June 4, 1999)just resigned as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
She was a professional government bureaucrat and served under Democratic Presidents in a wide range of positions including the first Director of the Office of Management and Budget which, I believe, went back to the Johnson years.
She was a liberal Democrat and an economist. She was good but not great but above all she was (1) a liberal and (2) a bureaucrat.
The Republic National Bank of New York used to engage me to do an annual series of debates with different economists each and every year for about ten years. In the years of the desert for the Democrats (1968-1974) the former Democrat Party Federal Cabinet Officers (or equivalent) would usually spend their waiting time (for the Democrats to get back into power) at the Brookings Institution in Washington D. C. In the desert years that is where Alice Rivlin waited.
In 1972 or thereabouts I was told by the Republic National Bank that my opponent in the annual economic debate would be Alice Rivlin.
She was most courteous, polite and respectful before the debate began. She was introduced to the audience by the Chairman of the Bank and lead off the debate. you have to realize that in 1972 I was close to Richard Nixon and that in 1971 he had announced the stimulus program for his reelection (reelection program). It was also known by the professionals that I had a major hand in that program.
Alice Rivlin immediately on obtaining the podium lit into me and attacked me and the Republican party most viciously. She had nothing good to say about any of us, she hated Richard Nixon and she hated anyone [including me] that supported him! She pulled no punches and she was actually at all times bordering on being vile and repugnant. She tore me to pieces and left no skin on my back.
My turn came to talk and being that I believe that we are all of us responsible adults and equal I took her on. I gave her as good as she gave me. I pulled no punches and went after her for supporting Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam war (she had forgotten that I had been an advisor to LBJ during that time). I left no stone unturned in my attack on her and was giving her equal treatment when I heard a sob!
I stopped and looked around and then I realized that Alice Rivlin was crying her eyes out. She was the one that was sobbing. Tears were pouring down her face and she was constantly wiping her eyes between sobs.
I stopped the attack, concluded my remarks and left the podium in disgust.
Alice Rivlin was a typical emotional liberal: she could dish it out but she couldn't take it!
It was OK for her to tke the skin off my back but it was not OK for me to counter attack!
