How Hard It Is To Work for the Obama Administration

[babylonsister]

How Hard It Is To Work for the Obama Administration

By David Corn | March 6, 2009 10:20 AM



On Thursday afternoon, as the White House summit on health carereform was ending, a parade of Washington pooh-bahs moved from the Old Executive Office Building, past the outside of the West Wing, to the front entrance of the White House for a final meeting, where President Barack Obama would hold a seminar-like session. ("Senator Mitch McConnell, got any thoughts to share?") As I watched Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Rep. Henry Waxman and others strolling along, I spotted a senior administration official who handles economic issues. He, too, was heading to the East Wing, and he was holding a collection of thick briefing books.

"Having fun?" I asked.

"Any time I'm not working on AIG and Citibank, it's a good day," he said. "Health care is fun compared to that. Believe me, I'm glad to be out of the office doing this."

How encouraging, I thought.

"You know what makes everything so hard?" he asked me. Before I could answer, he stepped closer to me.

"It's the economy," he remarked. "We could deal with any of this"--referring to the assorted financial crises underway--"if the economy wasn't so bad. You have one big insurance company that goes bad? Okay, you can go out and find other companies that will buy up parts of it. You can work something out. That's not difficult to do. But now there's no one out there to buy. You have a home foreclosure crisis. You can put together a plan. But there's no plan that's going to work if the guy who's foreclosed on loses his job and can't make a house payment. You have a major auto company go bust? You can prop it up, throw it some capital. But if no one is buying cars, it doesn't matter. Look at Toyota. It's one of the best run companies in the world. And it can't make it these days."

more...

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2009/03/how-hard-it-is-to-work-for-the.html

[firedupdem]

1. That article made me somewhat depressed! This country is in

such bad shape.

[Kdillard]

2. Good luck to them.