Brad DeLong was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Treasury during the first years of the Clinton administration, leaving in May 1995. You can learn something about his work at the Treasury, here: "What I Did in Washington", and here: "Farewell to Treasury" (the later has some good advice from economist Michael Boskin on how the head of an analytical team should approach the job).
So, DeLong is qualified to post, as he did today, on Treasury and Clinton administration mindsets with respect to the justification for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and to anticipation of the Mexican financial crisis of 1994-95. The post is here: "Looking Back at the NAFTA Ratification Debate". Some nice discussions of the relationship between policy analysis and public relations, and on how Clinton's experience as a governor may have influenced his approach to trade issues. On Clinton:
"...As to Bill Clinton's mind. I *think*, I don't know, I don't know the guy well enough. I *think* that the key factor is that Clinton was governor of a small state for more than a decade, and that a big part of his job as Governor of Arkansas was bringing investment into Arkansas and selling Arkansas's exports outside the state. And he'd also spent a bunch of time in the close embrace of Tyson Chicken and Wal-Mart. These give him, I think, a cast of mind that had an instinctive resonance with export-led Keynesian growth ("we're going to employ Americans in good jobs building and selling Mexico the capital equipment it needs to industrialize") and also had few illusions about the quality of much food-processing and textile employment ("so we trade away a bunch of chicken-plucking and polyester-spinning jobs to Mexico; the jobs we get in return (if the Federal Reserve does its job) have to be better ones than those"). Sperling always tried to keep the balance between number and quality of jobs: "good jobs at good wages." Clinton--on the few occasions I saw him in small groups--would always say, "Yes, yes, I know, Gene. But that's too complicated. I need to simplify." And he would always simplify to the "more jobs" rather than the "better jobs" position..."
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