Yes, it is an obvious joke:
JustOneMinute: New Forecast - Snow Gone By Spring: Bush will be changing his economic team, and, according to one Administration official paraphrased by the WaPo, "Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long".
Well, why shouldn't Bush change his team? He has an ambitious and complicated Social Security reform on his agenda, coupled with a complicated quest for tax simplification, or reduction, or something. Normally, either one of these projects might choke Congress, even with an experienced team pushing it. Instead, we will have a new team and new agenda, and I have no idea how this is going to work.
However, I have my own suspicion as to why these folks on Bush's economic side burn out after a year or two - the strain of keeping a straight face while presenting yet another budget forecast becomes unbearable. Possible answers - better botox, or stronger Kool-aid...
I don't think there's any Kool-aid in the world strong enough, especially as it looks as though all the administration's careful statements about how they plan to halve the unified budget deficit (i.e., the deficit including the current net flow of money into the Social Security Trust Fund as an offset) are about to become completely inoperative.
But I think there's more reason to be annoyed at Mike Allen's Washington Post article than Tom Maguire does. I understand that Bush administration loyalty runs only one way. But should Washington Post reporters be as eager to assist in the backstabbing as Mike Allen is?
For the major point of the article is, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Mr. Snow and Mr. Friedman." Singularly graceless--like the firing of Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsey two years ago:
Washington Post - November 29, 2004: Bush to Change Economic Team: Candidates Likely To Be From Outside The Administration. By Mike Allen, Washington Post Staff Writer
President Bush plans to overhaul his economic team for the second time in two years and wants to tap some prominent replacements from outside the administration to help sell rewrites of Social Security and the tax laws to Congress and the country, White House aides and advisers said over the weekend. Aides said changing four of the five top economic officials -- including the Treasury and Commerce secretaries, with only budget director Joshua B. Bolten likely to remain -- is part of Bush's preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda....
Republican officials said Bush's economic team has been weaker than his national security advisers, and that the president believes he needs aides who can relate better to Congress and the markets. A more skilled team is essential, the aides said, because of the complex and politically challenging agenda of overhauling Social Security to add private investment accounts and simplifying the tax code.
"The president knows that he doesn't have the strength in that stable, and he's going to another corral to find it," said a member of Bush's political team who asked not to be identified because it is not his job to talk to reporters. One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long....
Friends said [that NEC Chair Stephen] Friedman announced last week that he was leaving because it became clear to him that he would not be named Treasury secretary. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, also is expected to depart, officials said.
It would have shown some competence had Mike Allen remembered that Greg signed up to do the job for two years and only two years, and is leaving after two years. It would have shown some class if the "officials" announcing Greg Mankiw's departure had reminded Mike Allen that Greg signed up to do the job for two years and only two years, and is leaving after two years.
It would have shown some reportorial skill had Mike Allen asked even one of his anonymous sources the question, "If this current economic team is so weak, why did George W. Bush pick them in the first place?"
And it would be interesting to know just why "Republican officials" and "members of Bush's political team" think that the "economic team has been weaker than the national security advisors." What huge mistakes demonstrating a lack of contact with reality have Mankiw, Friedman, Evans, Snow, and Bolten made over the past two years that bear comparison with the disastrous failure of reconstruction in Iraq and the pointless trashing of our long-term alliances? Excessive cheerleading for the 2003 tax cut (and insufficient attention to its long-run fiscal consequences), excessive optimism about Congress's willingness to curb spending, and a certain tone-deafness on exchange rate policy are the only mistakes that I would find them guilty of.
But no matter what the reality, the story the Bush White House wishes to sell is "Bush Takes Bold Action to Strengthen Economic Team," and Mike Allen is happy to be their megaphone.
I hope he gets a lot of extra access as a result...
Posted by DeLong at November 29, 2004 08:57 PM | TrackBackBut look on the bright side. The notion that Snow is departing at least gave us a one-day rally for the dollar!
Bush should probably just pick Arnold Schwarzenegger as his whole economic team. He's not looking for an idea person; he needs a new sales force. If Arnold is brought in just before the Social Security privatization and tax reform bills are brought to the floor in the House and Senate, they'd could pass and get signed before anybody has a chance to read them!
Posted by: Charlie at November 29, 2004 09:28 PMFor the sake of an American interest in southern Africa, and for the sake of Africa's need for such interest, we should be sorry to lose Colin Powell as Secretary of State.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/international/africa/28swazi.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=
Hut by Hut, AIDS Steals Life in a Southern Africa Town
By MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE
LAVUMISA, Swaziland - Victim by victim, AIDS is steadily boring through the heart of this small town....
By one hut-to-hut survey in 2003, one in four households on the town's poorer side lost someone to AIDS in the preceding year. One in three had a visibly ill member.
That is just the dead and the dying. There is also the world they leave behind. AIDS has turned one in 10 Lavumisans into an orphan. It has spawned street children, prostitutes and dropouts. It has thrust grandparents and sisters and aunts into the unwanted roles of substitutes for dead fathers and mothers. It has bred destitution, hunger and desperation among the living.
It has the appearance of a biblical cataclysm, a thousand-year flood of misery and death. In fact, it is all too ordinary. Tiny Lavumisa, population 2,000, is the template for a demographic plunge taking place in every corner of southern Africa.
I think you're missing what's meant by the term "weak." It has nothing to do with competence. Rather, it's all about the economics team's willingness and aggressiveness for pushing obvious falsehoods to promote programs that they know will severely damage the country.
The national security team is "strong" because they are willing to heavily promote policies that undermine national security. Bush's new economic team will be "strong" because they, too, will get out and lie to promote policies that undermine the economy.
Bush is going to leave an amazing legacy--provided the United States continues to exist as a country in the aftermath of his rule.
Posted by: Derelict at November 30, 2004 05:48 AMWhat new people are likely to take on this fantasyland job?
Charles
Posted by: charles at November 30, 2004 06:29 AMGrover Norquist has been tapped for Treasury.
Posted by: theCoach at November 30, 2004 06:45 AM"I don't think there's any Kool-aid in the world strong enough, especially as it looks as though all the administration's careful statements about how they plan to halve the unified budget deficit (i.e., the deficit including the current net flow of money into the Social Security Trust Fund as an offset) are about to become completely inoperative."
They could always hire Larry Kudlow.
You can sweats Kool Aid.
The press keeps reporting that the WH wants Jim Poterba to run CEA. He is an excellent public finance economist--so why would he want the job?
Posted by: Richard Green at November 30, 2004 06:55 AMAs Brad has said before, no one gets out of this administration with their reputation intact.
They need a fresh crop of folks who still have some credibility left.
Posted by: Kosh at November 30, 2004 07:06 AMThe economic team is considered "weak" because the economy is not responding the way their "supply side theory" would predict. Obviously, the theory cannot be wrong because Mr Bush does not make mistakes. It must be the managers. Kill the messengers. The economy was barely strong enough to give Mr. Bush a reelection in a squeaker.
The Bush fiscal policy has demonstrated a need to revise economics texts. Some caveats should be added about deficit spending to prod an economy and reduce unemployment. Deficit spending is up $1.85 Trillion since 2000 and unemployment is still above 2000 levels. Deficits will run over $400 Billion/y for the near future (barring revenue increases). The new revisions need to emphasize that deficit spending is not enough. It is how the deficit spending is directed. The 2001 tax cuts could be a case study "Exhibit A".
Posted by: bakho at November 30, 2004 07:50 AMToday's WaPo story (even with Mike Allen in the byline) is better, once you dig into it:
------------------------------------------------
Officials familiar with the search process said that, Gutierrez notwithstanding, the White House has found it harder to attract a top-flight team because some candidates are unwilling to give up lucrative posts to come to Washington to be White House cheerleaders.
One economist, who was rumored to be up for a position on the Council of Economic Advisers, said he could not take a job that has been steadily pushed to the sidelines over the past two years. "You can't be attracted to a job where you'd be out of the loop," he said.
A top White House official disputed that, saying: "The idea we can't recruit people to serve because they don't want to be cheerleaders is absolutely wrong."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist James Poterba, the top choice to replace N. Gregory Mankiw as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has declined the post, sources inside and outside the White House said. Poterba told White House officials he did not want to move to Washington and disrupt his...children's lives.
Stanford University's John Cogan, a top economist for President George H.W. Bush, has declined invitations to join the administration as a point man for Social Security reform, White House officials say.
White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said both cases involved personal circumstances and were not a reflection of the desirability of White House employment. The officials asserted that the new team at the National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers will be involved in crafting policies that will make up the core of Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security and the tax code.
But some Republican economists say the administration's top economic jobs have been marginalized, while their inhabitants have been publicly humiliated.
"Why would you want to take a job where you have no influence?" asked Bruce Bartlett of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. "What's the point?"
Stephen Friedman, who had said last week that he planned to step down as Bush's chief economic adviser, submitted a letter of resignation yesterday saying he planned to return to the private sector.
The dismissals of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill and chief economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey two years ago signaled that Bush would accept no dissent or friction in his administration, Bartlett said.
Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is seen as more of a promoter of White House policymaking than a policymaker, and Snow faces anonymous quotes predicting his departure. "It doesn't look like the White House treats its economic advisers very well, regardless of competence or loyalty," Bartlett said.
Among those mentioned as a possible Snow successor is New York Gov. George E. Pataki, who said in Utica, N.Y., yesterday that he is not interested. When asked why his name keeps popping up for one Bush administration job or another, Pataki replied, "God only knows."
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19761-2004Nov29.html
Now that's the bottom half of the story, so they buried the true lede of "nobody with a clue wants to be part of this Administration's economic team," but at least they had it in the story at all. We take what we can get.
Posted by: RT at November 30, 2004 08:03 AMToday's WaPo story (even with Mike Allen in the byline) is better, once you dig into it:
------------------------------------------------
Officials familiar with the search process said that, Gutierrez notwithstanding, the White House has found it harder to attract a top-flight team because some candidates are unwilling to give up lucrative posts to come to Washington to be White House cheerleaders.
One economist, who was rumored to be up for a position on the Council of Economic Advisers, said he could not take a job that has been steadily pushed to the sidelines over the past two years. "You can't be attracted to a job where you'd be out of the loop," he said.
A top White House official disputed that, saying: "The idea we can't recruit people to serve because they don't want to be cheerleaders is absolutely wrong."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist James Poterba, the top choice to replace N. Gregory Mankiw as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has declined the post, sources inside and outside the White House said. Poterba told White House officials he did not want to move to Washington and disrupt his children's lives.
Stanford University's John Cogan, a top economist for President George H.W. Bush, has declined invitations to join the administration as a point man for Social Security reform, White House officials say.
White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said both cases involved personal circumstances and were not a reflection of the desirability of White House employment. The officials asserted that the new team at the National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers will be involved in crafting policies that will make up the core of Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security and the tax code.
But some Republican economists say the administration's top economic jobs have been marginalized, while their inhabitants have been publicly humiliated.
"Why would you want to take a job where you have no influence?" asked Bruce Bartlett of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. "What's the point?"
Stephen Friedman, who had said last week that he planned to step down as Bush's chief economic adviser, submitted a letter of resignation yesterday saying he planned to return to the private sector.
The dismissals of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill and chief economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey two years ago signaled that Bush would accept no dissent or friction in his administration, Bartlett said.
Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is seen as more of a promoter of White House policymaking than a policymaker, and Snow faces anonymous quotes predicting his departure. "It doesn't look like the White House treats its economic advisers very well, regardless of competence or loyalty," Bartlett said.
Among those mentioned as a possible Snow successor is New York Gov. George E. Pataki, who said in Utica, N.Y., yesterday that he is not interested. When asked why his name keeps popping up for one Bush administration job or another, Pataki replied, "God only knows."
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19761-2004Nov29.html
Now that's the bottom half of the story, so they buried the true lede of "nobody with a clue wants to be part of this Administration's economic team," but at least they had it in the story at all. We take what we can get.
Posted by: RT at November 30, 2004 08:21 AMApologies for the gargantuan double-post.
Posted by: RT at November 30, 2004 08:27 AMBrad,
You've become quite a good media critic.
Can we convince you to replace Howard Kurtz?
We know what happens to the people who don't toe the party line once they're in the administration. I'm curious to know how those who publicly decline becoming part of this atrocious mess are dealt with -- are they punished in some way as well?
Posted by: semper fubar at November 30, 2004 09:15 AMRe:
I understand that Bush administration loyalty runs only one way.
Well, there's always Condoleeza Rice...
Posted by: Jonathan Goldberg at November 30, 2004 09:23 AM