slate of Clinton appointees. In the very early days of the administration, Reich was seen as one of the most powerful members of the Clinton cabinet, both for his friendship with the President and his ambitious agenda for the Department of Labor. Whereas under 12 years of Republican presidencies the Department had largely been used as a patronage posting, Reich envisioned it as the nucleus of a "cluster" of agencies, including the departments of Commerce and Education, which could act in tandem to break down traditional bureaucratic barriers. Consistent with the 1992 Clinton platform and his writings before taking office, Reich called for more federal spending on jobs training and infrastructure. Reich also took initiative to expand his flexible power as an economic advisor-at-large to the President. As a member of the National Economic Council, Reich advised Clinton on health care reform, education policy, welfare reform, national service initiatives, and technology policy, as well as deficit reduction and spending priorities. He also actively engaged independent government agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission, to take a labor-focused approach to regulation. He referred to himself as "secretary of the American work force" and "the central banker of the nation's greatest resource." However, he butted heads with deficit hawks on the administration's economic team, including budget director Leon Panetta and Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, a holdover from the Reagan administration whom Clinton reappointed. Reducing the deficit was soon the administration's top economic priority, placing Reich's economic agenda on hold. He later credited Hillary Clinton with keeping him apprised of goings-on within the White House. During his tenure, he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and successfully lobbied to increase the national minimum wage. NAFTA Throughout his first year in office, Reich was a leading proponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was negotiated by the George H. W. Bush administration and supported by Clinton following two side agreements negotiated to satisfy labor and environmental groups. Reich served as leading public and private spokesman for the Clinton administration against organized labor, who continued to oppose the Agreement as a whole. In July 1993, Reich said that the unions were "just plain wrong" to suggest NAFTA would cause a loss of American employment and predicted that "given the pace of growth of the Mexican automobile market over the next 15 years, I would say that more automobile jobs