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“resolvinG tHe Crisis; restorinG tHe ConfiDenCe”
RTC, or was merely writing a letter so that he could show or say that he had acted on his constituent’s behalf and then blame the bureaucrats— namely, us. It would not be an overstatement to say that as much as 10 percent of office time was devoted to the analysis of congressionals and to the preparation and review of responses.
Perhaps the most memorable, if not the most outrageous, of con- gressionals was penned by Texas Representative Henry B. Gonzalez, Democrat from Austin. He had found out that the RTC had come into the ownership of a large, developable, and therefore very valuable piece of property in his district’s downtown area. As far as Gonzalez was con- cerned, the RTC was virtually obliged to contribute the land at no cost to Austin so that it could be used as a park by his worthy city. Now, it’s just possible that Representative Gonzalez did not know that it was not within the agency’s charter to appropriate the government’s property. Or maybe he had a lapse of memory. But it was no easy task to respond politely (and negatively) to the chairman of the House Banking Com- mittee, the committee that oversaw the activities of the RTC. Somehow, I did so.
As I noted, when I started my tour of duty, George Herbert Walker Bush was the president. That was not to last. In the November 1992 election, William Jefferson Clinton defeated Bush and was therefore sworn in as the new president on January 20, 1993. You would think that, with the comparatively limited charge of the RTC (and its assumed short life; it was scheduled by FIRREA to “sunset” in 1996), there would be no policy shifts at the agency. Wrong. Even before January 20, young members-to-be of the new administration arrived with black notebooks and started asking questions. Incredible as it seemed, I was much hap- pier, insofar as the RTC was concerned, with Bush as president. (Remember, this was Bush the father, not Bush the son.) Under Bush, the agency seemed to be all business: Take the assets, and dispose of them as quickly as possible at the best possible price, using creative and new methods to do so, if necessary.
Bill Clinton had a more expansive vision and never focused on the economics. His focus seemed to be entirely concerned with minority
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