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History of the Treasury
Secretaries of the Treasury
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Robert E. Rubin
(1995 - 1999)
When President William Jefferson Clinton swore in Robert
E. Rubin (b. 1938) as the 70th Secretary of the Treasury, he was already
one of the most knowledgeable and best prepared leaders of finance to assume
the office. Before entering public service, Mr. Rubin worked for twenty-six
years at Goldman Sachs & Co., one of Wall Street’s venerable investment
firms, where he rose to the position of Co-Chairman. He was originally appointed
by President Clinton to be Assistant to the President for Economic Policy
and to serve as the nation’s first director of the National Economic Council
(1993-1995),  which coordinated Administration economic
policy throughout the Clinton administration. With his vast experience in
financial markets and collegial temperament, he helped President Clinton,
and his economic team developed an economic policy based on vigorous deficit
reduction, global open markets, and investments in education, training and
the environment. This program helped to spark and sustain the longest economic
expansion in the nation’s history to date, transforming the nation’s budgetary
position from deficit to surplus, and produce the lowest national rates
of unemployment in decades.
After succeeding Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury Secretary,
Mr. Rubin faced threats to the nation’s creditworthiness and to the stability
of the global financial system. Secretary Rubin used his statutory authority
to safeguard the Federal government’s finances and make timely payments
of the Federal debt when the Congress did not raise the debt limit during
an extensive budgetary confrontation. During his tenure, financial crises
flared in Mexico and Asia posing real risks to global financial stability.
Secretary Rubin led efforts–with the IMF, Federal Reserve and others–that
contained both disruptions, stopping both crises from overwhelming the
global financial system, protecting the American economic expansion, and
spurring Mexico and Asia toward economic recovery.
Mr. Rubin’s tenure at Treasury was extraordinarily
varied. He spoke out about growing "interdependence" among nations and
urged Americans to appreciate the benefits of increasing economic integration
in the post-Cold War era. He worked forcefully throughout his tenure for
fiscal discipline and open trade, while strongly advocating policies to
provide greater skills and support for workers and low income Americans,
particularly in the inner city. He strongly supported aid for developing
nations and acted to reform the architecture of the global financial system.
He worked to reform the IRS and for financial modernization. He also championed
the priorities of Treasury’s law enforcement agencies, including policies
to redesign the nation’s currency to thwart counterfeiting, decrease the
accessibility of guns to former felons and to minors, enhance Presidential
security, interdict drugs at US borders, and combat money laundering.
Upon Mr. Rubin’s retirement, President Clinton called him the "greatest
secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton."
About the Artist
Aaron Shikler was born in Brooklyn, New York, in
1922, and studied at the Barnes Foundation, Marion, Pennsylvania and earned
bachelors and a master degree from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University,
Philadelphia. He received additional instruction at the American University,
Shrivenham, England and the Hans Hoffman School, New York. A nationally
acclaimed artist, he is represented in the White House Collection by the
portrait of President John F. Kennedy and the official First Lady portraits
of Mrs. John F. Kennedy and Mrs. Ronald Reagan. The portrait of Secretary
Rubin was painted in 1999.
Office of the Curator
All rights reserved. 2001
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