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| Paul O'Neill |
Gerrymandering was a strong area of his expertise.
I wonder how Steve Mnuchin is doing, right about now?
According to Wikipedia:
In 1989, he was approached by President George H. W. Bush to be Secretary of Defense. O'Neill declined, but recommended Dick Cheney for the position. Bush then pursued O'Neill to chair an advisory group on education that included Lamar Alexander, Bill Brock, and Richard Riley.
#maytheheavensfall
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill dies at age 84
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill holds a news conference at the U.N. Conference for Financing of Development in Monterrey, Mexico on March 20, 2002. O'Neill died Saturday, April 18, 2020. He was 84.Paul O'Neill, a former Treasury secretary who broke with George W. Bush over tax policy and then produced a book critical of the administration, died Saturday. He was 84.
O'Neill's son, Paul O'Neill Jr. confirmed that his father died at his home in Pittsburgh after battling lung cancer for the last couple of years. After a few surgeries and chemotherapy, he decided against any further intervention four or five months ago, he said.
"There was some family here and he died peacefully," the son said. "Based on his situation, it was a good exit."
A former head of aluminum giant Alcoa, O'Neill served as Treasury secretary from 2001 to late 2002. He was forced to resign after he objected to a second round of tax cuts because of their impact on deficits.
O'Neill's blunt speaking style more than once got him in trouble as Treasury secretary. He sent the dollar into a tailspin briefly in his early days at Treasury when his comments about foreign exchange rates surprised markets. In the spring of 2001, O'Neill jolted markets again when during Wall Street's worst week in 11 years, he blandly declared "markets go up and markets go down."
He was more focused on the traditional Treasury secretary's job of instilling confidence during times of turbulence later that year when he helped get Wall Street re-opened after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. O'Neill was also instrumental following the attacks in beefing up the government's programs to disrupt financing to terrorist groups.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday on Twitter, "Saddened to hear of the passing of the former 72nd Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill. He served @USTreasury and America with distinction during challenging times. My condolences to his family."
Tony Fratto, who served as O'Neill's Treasury spokesman, described O'Neill as a "working class guy" who "cared about how things impacted real people."
Fratto, currently a partner with Hamilton Place Strategies in Washington, said that one of O'Neill's passions was workplace safety, and that he would tour the Treasury building looking for safety issues that needed to be fixed.
After leaving the administration, O'Neill worked with author Ron Suskind on an explosive book covering his two years in the administration. O'Neill contended that the administration began planning the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein right after Bush took office, eight months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
O'Neill depicted Bush as a disengaged president who didn't encourage debate either at Cabinet meetings or in one-on-one discussions with Cabinet members. He said the lack of discussion in Cabinet meetings gave him the feeling that Bush "was like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people."
He said major decisions were often made by Bush's political team and Vice President Dick Cheney. O'Neill had been recruited to join the Cabinet by Cheney, his old friend from the Gerald Ford administration. But it was Cheney who told O'Neill that the president wanted his resignation. It was part of a move by Bush to shake up his economic team and find a better salesman for a new round of tax cuts the president hoped would stimulate a sluggish economy.
When the book, "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill" came out in early 2004, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan discounted O'Neill's descriptions of White House decision-making and said the president was "someone that leads and acts decisively on our biggest priorities."
After leaving the Cabinet, O'Neill returned to Pittsburgh, where he had headed Alcoa from 1987 to 1999. He resumed working with the Pittsburgh Regional Health Care Initiative, a consortium of hospitals, medical societies and businesses studying ways to improve health care delivery in Western Pennsylvania. The subject had interested him since his days as a budget analyst in Washington with the Office of Management and Budget.
He also devoted time in retirement to projects that would deliver clean drinking water to Africa. As Treasury secretary, O'Neill had focused attention on poverty and combating diseases such as AIDS in Africa, touring the continent with Irish rock star Bono.
While at Alcoa, O'Neill lifted the company out of the doldrums during his 12-year stint as the Pittsburgh company's CEO. Shortly after he took the job in April 1987, he began emphasizing factory safety and employee dignity as a top priority.
His ideas weren't initially well received by profit-driven investors, who cared more about Alcoa's financial performance. After hearing one of O'Neill's first presentations as Alcoa's CEO, one money manager decided the company had put a "crazy hippie in charge" and advised his 20 largest clients to sell its stock, according to the book, "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg.
That investor later called it one of his worst decisions. By the time, O'Neill stepped down as CEO in 1999, Alcoa's accident rate had plunged and its stock had soared more than seven-fold at a time it was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Before joining Alcoa, O'Neill had been president from 1985 to 1987 of International Paper Co., a firm he had joined in 1977 after leaving OMB.
After graduating with an economics degree from California State University in Fresno in 1961, O'Neill joined the Veterans Administration in Washington, working as a computer systems analyst. He later moved to OMB and rose to become deputy director of the budget agency from 1974 to 1977, providing budget guidance to then-President Gerald Ford.
In June 2019, O'Neill received the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service, according to a piece in his hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Cheney and Alan Greenspan, who headed the Federal Reserve when O'Neill was Treasury secretary, are among the past recipients of the award.
O'Neill is survived by his wife, four children, 12 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.
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New TARP Rules: Curb Executive Pay, Bonuses, Parachutes
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill calls pay limits "a large mistake."Feb. 4, 2009 — -- Wall Street was bearish today over President Obama's new $500,000 pay limit for executives of financial institutions who he said have come "hat in hand" asking for taxpayers' help.
The new limits, which would affect banks that accept "exceptional assistance" from the public treasury, would also impose stricter rules on golden parachutes, entertainment, holiday parties, conferences and the use of corporate jets.
Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable, expressed concerns about the new executive compensation restrictions.
"The pay scale for Wall Street is different for the pay scale for America," Talbott told ABC News. "So these numbers look large, but the market value for these executives - there's a very small talent pool of individuals that have the education, experience and knowledge to operate a global, international services firm in this day and age."
Executives may quit banks that fall under the new $500,000 pay limits, he warned.
"I don't think the issue is a dollar amount. It's being paid what you're worth… Would you be willing to work for less than what you think you're worth?" Talbott asked.
The compensation limits might also make banks hesitant to ask the federal government for help.
"Companies will have to reevaluate whether the benefits are still worth it under the new rules," he said.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Obama's move "is going to be a very popular populist move.... even though I think it is a large mistake."
O'Neill, who served under President George W. Bush, told ABC News that the banks would have complied if Obama had asked them to voluntarily follow the new limits. He also pointed out that many of the banks' employees get annual bonuses, not just the top executives. Should the limits apply to them, too, O'Neill asked.
He also said the pay limits could hurt the banks' ability to compete. "To the degree there are competing institutions out there not affected by the new edict, does this give those institutions a significant competitive advantage in attracting talent?"
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed suggestions that the pay caps could hurt the already ailing banks.
"I think we've struck the right balance," Gibbs said.
Obama's pay limits were endorsed by House Minority Leader John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio.
"I think if anybody is looking to the taxpayer to help bail their company out, these kinds of executive compensation limits are appropriate," he said.
On the $500,000 pay limit, Boehner said, "I think somebody's got to pick a number. The president has picked one. I applaud him for doing it."
ABC News contacted all 30 institutions that received $1 billion or more in bailout money, and most of them ignored the calls or declined to comment.
GMAC, which got $5 billion, said it is already subject to compensation limits imposed by the Bush administration. "We intend to comply with those requirements. We have no further comment," GMAC said.
In scolding language, the president said that the changes are necessary to help stabilize the economy.
"We've got to restore trust," Obama said. "And in order to restore trust, we've got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street."
The president echoed his inauguration address when he said there would be a "new era of responsibility."
"We all need to take responsibility," he said while announcing the new compensation rules with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. "And this includes executives at major financial firms who turned to the American people, hat in hand, when they were in trouble, even as they paid themselves their customary lavish bonuses."
"What gets people upset – and rightfully so – are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers," Obama said.
The $500,000 salary limit is still more than Obama makes -- $400,000 -- but is a pittance compared to the $20 million that Kenneth Lewis took home in 2007 as head of Bank of America, a corporation that needed $45 billion of public money to save it from its mountain of bad loans.
The president said the new rules announced today would be accompanied by an effort to determine "how corporate governance and compensation rules can be reformed."
Exceptions to the New Rules
There are exceptions to the new executive pay rules, however.
Banking executives can get extra compensation in restricted stock, but only stock that will not vest until taxpayers are repaid the loans, plus interest.
Companies bailed out by Uncle Sam are permitted to waive the $500,000 rule if they disclose executive compensation and allow investors a nonbinding vote on executive pay.
Banks that have already received several hundred billion dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program under the Bush administration won't be subject to the new rules. But several of those banks are expected to come back to the federal till for additional relief.
The new Obama TARP rules will require those companies to demonstrate they have complied with the previously issued restrictions on executive pay and lending requirements, and agree to strict monitoring and oversight going forward.
The new rules also make it harder for corporate titans to live the high life on the public dollar. They include restrictions on how the money can be spent, with a bull's-eye on such items as aviation expenses, office renovations, entertainment and corporate parties.
The new Treasury provisions expand rules established under the Bush administration. Restrictions on golden parachutes originally applied to only the top five executives of an affected bank. That will now be extended to the top 10 officials, and golden parachutes for the next 25 top officials will be limited to one year's pay.
Clawback rules that would require banking officials would have to return bonuses if found to have falsified reports. Those rules originally applied to a bank's top five executives, but under the rules detailed today that would be extended to the top 25 bank officials.
The public has been repeatedly infuriated by examples of federally subsidized bankers still spending lavishly on themselves while laying off tens of thousands of employees and of retirement nest eggs vaporized.
Obama called it "shameful" last week when it was reported that bankers had handed out $18.5 billion in bonuses at the end of 2008, despite the dreadful year of financial losses. The White House had to intervene to persuade Citigroup to abandon plans to buy a $50 million executive jet after getting its $45 billion boost. Merrill Lynch's former CEO John Thain had to be shamed into personally repaying the $1 million he spent on renovating his office while surviving on an additional $45 billion public loan. Bank of America partied hardy at the Super Bowl last weekend. And this week, Wells Fargo reluctantly canceled a corporate outing to Las Vegas.
GOP Emboldened By Obama Stumbles
The new rules should bring a cheer from a frustrated public, a sound that the Obama White House hasn't heard in a while. The withdrawal of two top appointees this week because they hadn't paid all their taxes even prompted the president to repeatedly apologize Tuesday for not adhering to the ethical standard he had publicly set for his administration.
"This was running the possibility of really hurting his reformist image," George Stephanopoulos, ABC News' chief Washington correspondent, told "Good Morning America" today.
The withdrawal of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was particularly damaging because Daschle was going to be the health and human services secretary and the point man on Obama's efforts to reshape the country's health-care system.
The stumbles could also embolden Republicans who are opposing large parts of the president's economic stimulus package.
"The president's going to have to agree to some changes right now," Stephanopoulos told "GMA."
Obama will meet today with Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Neb., and Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. The trio are spearheading a centrist group of Democrats and Republicans working to reshape the stimulus bill.
"There will still be differences with this group," Stephanopoulos said. "The president doesn't want to bring the package down as far as some of these senators want to go. But they're going to be working intensively on a compromise today."
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