Bush Economic Team Features Lesser-Knowns

03/29/2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has beefed up his national security team with big-name advisers but has left his economic agenda in the hands of lesser-known officials whom some consider weak, unproven or inexperienced.

The lack of a deep bench on economic policy comes despite the far-reaching domestic agenda the president has set for his second term. It includes restructuring Social Security, making permanent $1.85 trillion in expiring tax cuts, streamlining the federal tax system and halving the budget deficit.

Although Bush has moved in recent days to fill some senior economic vacancies, many remain, particularly at the Treasury Department, while other posts are being filled with nominees with little economic policy experience.

“It’s not as if our economy is booming right now. The administration still hasn’t found the heavyweights it needs to send the strong signal that somebody’s in charge of the economy,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University.

Meanwhile, polls show Americans increasingly concerned about the direction of the economy, and Bush’s approval ratings have slipped into the mid-40 percent range.

Even some outside Bush advisers are privately expressing anxiety over the present economic uncertainties and risks posed by soaring budget and trade deficits, the weak dollar, and Bush’s apparent inability to fill top vacancies.

Furthermore, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the only government official who does enjoy the respect of both Main Street and Wall Street, is due to step down when his term expires early next year. Greenspan’s support for Bush’s first-term tax cuts helped propel them to passage in Congress.

The fact that Bush’s agenda is so White House driven has made it hard to entice seasoned individuals with economic experience to take senior positions, analysts suggest. Few want to go through the indignities of the presidential appointment process to be cheerleaders for policies they can’t influence.

The nominal head of the economic team - Treasury Secretary John Snow - has little of the clout that most previous treasury secretaries have wielded, either within the administration or on Wall Street.

Unlike Treasury secretaries James A. Baker III in the Reagan administration and Robert Rubin in the Clinton administration, Snow is not seen as having a major role in policy making.

Instead, Bush has concentrated economic decision-making in a small circle of White House advisers led by Karl Rove, the architect of his November re-election.

“He has an economic team that will agree with the president and not challenge him,” said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University. “He doesn’t have a team with a central core of authority, with a message.”

Bush appeared poised to replace Snow at the end of last year, but kept him on to serve as salesman for his No. 1 domestic priority, adding personal investment accounts to Social Security.

But so far, all the barnstorming by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Snow and others has done little to build public support or to prod Congress into moving on the subject.

Snow defended his performance. “Our primary role is to frame the debate,” he told reporters recently. “All over America today, at lunch counters and dinner tables, breakfast tables, the evening news, the morning news, Social Security is being discussed.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that the president would continue to make Social Security his top economic priority, including on a trip on Wednesday to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, despite polls showing a lack of support for his proposals.

As to whether Bush was hearing a diversity of viewpoints by attending events where audience members are screened supporters, McClellan said, “I think the president hears a lot of different viewpoints every day when we follow the news. I mean, there’s plenty of viewpoints being expressed on this issue.”

One of the most widely respected members of Bush’s first-term economic team, Robert Zoellick, left his post as U.S. trade representative earlier this year to become the top deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Bush earlier this month nominated a longtime family friend, Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a one-time international trade lawyer, to the trade job.

Portman will have a difficult time pursuing what Bush called “a bold agenda,” pushing trade initiatives that faced many obstacles in Bush’s first term and which may be even harder to move now given the record U.S. trade deficit.

The White House denies foot-dragging on filling economic posts and rejects suggestions that its economic team is weak. Aides blame Senate Democrats for delaying and threatening to block many such nominations on unrelated grounds.

In major spots, only Snow and Budget Director Joshua Bolten remain from the first term.

The No. 2 post of deputy Treasury secretary has been vacant since Samuel Bodman became Energy secretary in early February. John Taylor, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for international affairs, said last week that he would resign on April 22.

Bush selected a former campaign adviser, Timothy Adams, to succeed Taylor in that post.

“Economic policy could use a strong and loud voice,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com. “Policy can get through without that voice, but I think it will be more difficult.”