The incredible shrinking U.S. Treasury: can new chief John Snow turn things around?
When Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser, appeared recently at a hotel near the White House for a luncheon with the media, more than fifty newspaper and magazine reporters jumped at the chance to interview him. Nearly as many turned up when Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to the United States, was the guest at a similar event. But when John Snow made an appearance shortly after becoming U.S. Treasury Secretary, no more than twenty journalists attended, roughly the same number as showed up for a session with Gerald McEntee, a labor union official. The turnout was a reflection of the status of the once-powerful Treasury Department in Washington today. If reporters think the Treasury Secretary is no longer a central figure, he may not be. This is not simply the result of the Bush administration’s emphasis on wars with Iraq and global terrorists. Rather, Treasury has suffered an enormous loss of influence for both political and structural reasons. And the unanswer
