November 6, 2002 - Washington Post: Bush Key Economic Advisor wanted to axe the Peace Corps

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By Admin1 (admin) on Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 7:00 am: Edit Post

Bush Key Economic Advisor wanted to axe the Peace Corps





Read and comment on this story from the Washington Post that talks about President Bush's plan to shake up his embattled economic team and bolster it with battle-tested Washington veterans who will bring the White House a tougher-minded, more pragmatic conservatism for the run-up to the president's reelection campaign.

The story says that on November 4 the Treasury Department said White House economic aide James Carter became the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for policy coordination. Carter once dismissed the Peace Corps as a "Great Society-era" program worthy of the budget ax.

Bush has expressed strong support for the Peace Corps and has proposed doubling its budget over the next five years. Read the story at:


Bush Must Recast Economic Lineup*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Bush Must Recast Economic Lineup

By Jonathan Weisman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 6, 2002; Page E01

With the midterm elections behind him, President Bush will shake up his embattled economic team and bolster it with battle-tested Washington veterans who will bring the White House a tougher-minded, more pragmatic conservatism for the run-up to the president's reelection campaign, administration and congressional sources say.


White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said, "The president has confidence in his economic team, and we never discuss specific personnel matters."

Largely under the radar, the administration is already changing its economic team. It has added a senior Senate aide who helped scuttle the Clinton administration's proposed patients' bill of rights, and a health-care lobbyist with ties to the Christian right. It shifted to the Treasury an economic conservative who has criticized .government programs that Bush now favors.

Keith Hennessey, who was Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott's policy director, was hired in August .as deputy director of the National Economic Council. He has a reputation as an empire builder with a broad grasp of issues and a penchant for dealmaking. He received some notice in 1997 when an internal insurance industry memo surfaced naming Hennessey as the instigator of a "grass-roots" campaign by employers and insurers to scuttle the patients' bill of rights.

Last month, the White House brought in Douglas Badger from the high-powered lobbying firm Washington Council Ernst & Young as a senior health-care adviser. Badger had been chief of staff to Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles (R-Okla.) for much of the 1990s and has served on the board of advisers of Pat Robertson's Regent University. "Doug is known as being very conservative, very policy-oriented and does not like doing bad policy for political reasons," said a Republican health-care lobbyist who has worked closely with him.


On Monday, the Treasury Department said White House economic aide James Carter would become the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for policy coordination, a key post that ties the technically minded Treasury staff to the policymakers in the White House. As an opinion writer and economic adviser to Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), Carter made a mark as an uncompromising conservative who once excoriated federal bilingual education as a budget "oinker," labeled the Goals 2000 educational standards initiative "odious" and dismissed the Peace Corps as a "Great Society-era" program worthy of the budget ax. Bush has expressed strong support for all those programs and their successors.

Kevin Hassett, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute and friend of Carter's, said Carter was not "a doctrinaire person who has his mind made up already about everything."

Stephen Moore, president of the conservative political action committee Club for Growth, predicted that Carter will try to bring a new boldness to a Treasury Department that has been cautious about further tax cuts.

"It's almost as if the Treasury Department has been adversarial toward the Bush tax cut agenda, and that's been a big frustration," said Moore, who co-wrote opinion columns with Carter in the 1990s. "He'll be a supply-side foothold in Treasury Department, and it's sorely needed."

Taken together, the three recent moves appear to be an infusion of battle-hardened experience to an economic team that has been criticized as not grounded in reality. Colleagues praised all three as smart, politically attuned, and most of all, plugged in to power brokers on Capitol Hill, in the White House and in the lobbying world.


Read and comment on this Press Release announcing Mr. Carter's appointment as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination at:

James Carter Joins Treasury’s Economic Team as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination

FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
November 4, 2002
PO-3596

James Carter Joins Treasury’s Economic Team as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination

Treasury Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Richard Clarida today announced that James Carter will join the Office of Economic Policy on Monday, November 4th as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination.

“James brings an extensive background in economic policy to the Treasury Department,” stated Richard Clarida, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy. “His previous experience at the National Economic Council combined with his tenure on Capitol Hill makes him an invaluable asset to the Office of Economic Policy.”

Most recently, Mr. Carter served as an Associate Director for the National Economic Council where he assisted with the formulation and implementation of economic policy. He also managed policy coalitions and served on a White House working group on government waste and business subsidies.

Before joining the NEC in February 2001, Mr. Carter served as a senior economist on the staff of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. He has also served as an economic and budget advisor to Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO) and RNC Chairman Haley Barbour. In early 2000, at the invitation of the Russian government, Mr. Carter traveled to Moscow as part of a small international advisory team to assist President Vladimir Putin’s transition staff with economic and budget matters.

Mr. Carter’s extensive writings have appeared in more than two dozen publications, including USA Today, The Washington Times, Investor’s Business Daily, National Review, and The Weekly Standard.

He holds a B.S. in Political Science from Truman State University and a Master of Public Administration from George Mason University.



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