shameful

As I've mentioned before, whilst Obama has moved quickly, in historical terms, to fill his cabinet, he presides over a worrying number of vacancies at the under-secretary and deputy level; senior management roles that are vital to making the machinery of any administration run smoothly. Alarmingly, this applies most to the department that can least afford to not to get things done in a hurry: the Treasury. Now, Paul Volcker, the 81-year-old former Treasury Secretary now chairing Obama's Economic Advisory Board, has been moved to use strong language to describe the problem:

"There is an area that I think is, I don't know, shameful is the word," Paul Volcker said this morning at a Joint Economic Committee hearing. "The secretary of the treasury is sitting there without a deputy, without any undersecretaries, without any, as far as I know, assistant secretaries responsible in substantive areas at a time of very severe crisis. He shouldn't be sitting there alone."

This partly explains why Geither's poorly received banking plan was so sketchy. The poor chap is having to manage the financial crisis single-handedly. Volcker is doing him a favour to call this out.

(via Ben Smith)

Comments

[Richard]

Obama is only partly to blame for that situation. In the post-Watergate era, the American system has been obsessed with vetting every last aspect of any job candidate's life. As a result, it always takes at least a few months before a new president has his full team in place.

And, oh by the way, Volcker was never Treasury Secretary.

[Ian Leslie]

You're absolutely right - he was chairman of the Fed under Reagan (and before that Carter).