Robert Rubin
Robert Edward Rubin is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th United States secretary of the treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually serving as a member of the board and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992.
Rubin is credited as a force behind Clinton-era economic prosperity, including the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act and Balanced Budget Act of 1997. However, critics of Rubin have since argued that the bank-friendly policies he supported contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
As of 2025, Rubin is active in several organizations, including as a co-founder of the Hamilton Project, as co-chair emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a senior counselor at Centerview Partners.
Early life
Rubin was born on August 29, 1938, in New York City to Jewish parents Sylvia and Alexander Rubin. He moved to Miami Beach, Florida, at an early age and graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School. In 1960, Rubin graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in economics from Harvard College. He then attended Harvard Law School for three days before leaving to travel the world. He later attended the London School of Economics and received an LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1964.Early career
Rubin was an attorney at the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City from 1964 to 1966 before joining Goldman Sachs in 1966 as an associate in the risk arbitrage department. He later served as co-chief operating officer, and became co-senior partner and co-chairman in 1990.Rubin served as New York finance chairman for the Walter Mondale presidential campaign in 1984 and headed the host committee for the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York.
He served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Market Oversight and Financial Services Advisory Committee, and advisory panels for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and Mayor David Dinkins.
Clinton administration
From January 25, 1993, to January 10, 1995, Rubin served in the White House as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. In that capacity, he directed the National Economic Council, which Bill Clinton created after winning the presidency. The National Economic Council, or NEC, enabled the White House to coordinate closely the workings of the Cabinet departments and agencies on policies ranging from budget and tax to international trade and alleviating poverty. The NEC coordinated policy recommendations going into the President's office, and monitored implementation of the decisions that came out. Robert S. Strauss credited Rubin with making the system work. "He's surely the only man or woman in America that I know who could make the NEC succeed," Strauss said in 1994. "Anyone else would have been a disruptive force, and the council wouldn't have worked."1993 Deficit Reduction Act
Rubin encouraged Clinton to focus on deficit reduction and he was "one of the chief architects" of Clinton's 1993 Deficit Reduction Act plan.Supporters said the Act helped create the late 1990s budget surplus and strong economic growth, while opponents noted it raised taxes. As officials deliberated the deficit reduction plan, Rubin advocated for tax increases on those in the upper-income tax bracket. The Baltimore Sun said that the budget deal "was critical" and "convinced nervous bond traders that the new Democratic president was serious about the deficit, lowering long-term interest rates, spurring economic growth and, ultimately, helping to balance the budget."
Secretary of the Treasury
Clinton nominated Rubin as Treasury secretary in December 1994. On January 10, 1995, Rubin was sworn in as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury after the U.S. Senate confirmed him in a 99-0 vote. Rubin's tenure with the Clinton administration, especially as the head of Treasury, was marked by economic prosperity in the U.S. Rubin is credited as one of the main individuals behind U.S. economic growth, creating near full-employment and bullish stock markets while avoiding inflation. From the time he joined the White House until he announced his resignation from Treasury in 1999, U.S. unemployment fell from 6.9 percent to 4.3 percent; the U.S. budget went from a $255 billion deficit to a $70 billion surplus, and inflation fell. Rubin was succeeded in early July 1999 as Treasury secretary by his deputy, Lawrence Summers.According to CNN Money, Rubin was "one of the architects of the Clinton administration's economic policy, and is often credited—along with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan—for the booming eight-year economic expansion, the second-longest in U.S. history".
Senator Chuck Hagel called Rubin "an ideal public servant who put policy before politics." At the time of Rubin's resignation, Clinton called Rubin the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton."
1990s international crises
Upon being sworn into office as Treasury secretary in January 1995, Rubin was confronted with the Mexican peso crisis, which threatened to result in Mexico defaulting on its foreign obligations. President Bill Clinton, with the advice of Rubin and Greenspan, provided $20 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to the Mexican government through the Exchange Stabilization Fund. Mexico recovered and the U.S. Treasury made a $580 million profit as a result of the loan agreement.In 1997 and 1998, Rubin, Greenspan, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers worked with the International Monetary Fund and others to promote U.S. policy in response to financial crises in Russian, Asian, and Latin American financial markets. On the cover of its February 15, 1999, edition, Time Magazine dubbed the three policymakers "The Committee to Save the World".
Balanced budget agreement
Early in the Clinton administration, Rubin touted a balanced budget and a strong dollar as a way for the Fed to lower interest rates. He also argued that a balanced federal budget's broad benefits to society outweighed concerns that one group could benefit more than others. Rubin was the Clinton administration's chief negotiator with a Republican-controlled Congress on the balanced-budget deal. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 has been referred to as the "capstone" of Rubin's tenure as Treasury secretary.Regulation of derivatives
In 1998, Rubin and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan opposed giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight of over-the-counter credit derivatives when this was proposed by Brooksley Born, then head of the CFTC. Rubin and other senior officials recommended Congress relieve the CFTC of regulatory authority over derivatives in November 1999. Over-the-counter credit derivatives were eventually excluded from regulation by the CFTC by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. According to a Frontline report, derivatives played a key role in the 2008 financial crisis.Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has said in explaining Rubin's strong opposition to the regulations proposed by Born that Greenspan and Rubin were "joined at the hip on this. They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos." However, in Rubin's autobiography, he notes that he believed derivatives could pose significant problems and that many people who used derivatives did not fully understand the risks they were taking. In 2008, The New York Times reported that the proposal in 1997 would not have improved oversight of derivatives. Rubin said the financial system "could benefit from better regulation of derivatives". However, "the politics would have made this impossible," he said. Rubin said he had been concerned about derivatives' potential to create systemic risk since his time at Goldman Sachs.
In an interview on ABC's This Week program in April 2010, former President Clinton said Rubin was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate derivatives, which was by then seen as one of the underlying causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Clinton adviser Doug Band later said Clinton "inadvertently conflated an analysis he received on a specific derivatives proposal with then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's arguments against any regulation of derivatives". He said Clinton still wished he had pursued legislation to regulate derivatives while confirming that he still believed he had received excellent advice on the economy and the financial system from Rubin and others during his presidency.