WP: Treasury Struggles To Keep Influence – Role diminished under *

[kskiska]

At the peak of its power, the U.S. Treasury Department was the second-largest law enforcement agency in the country, responsible not just for guarding the nation's finances, but also for patrolling the coastline, enforcing gun and alcohol rules, and protecting the president.

Today, it is struggling to maintain influence over some core areas like tax policy in an administration that has largely sidelined the agency as a policymaking tool and often shut out its top experts from White House deliberations, according to economists, policymakers, and present and former Treasury officials from both parties.

The department's woes were underscored by the recent public travails of Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, reappointed by President Bush only after weeks of leaks and rumors from administration officials that he was going to be replaced.

(snip)

The pattern began in Bush's first term, when the White House abandoned the Clinton administration's practice of including the Treasury secretary in its daily political meeting and routinely rebuffed Secretary Paul H. O'Neill for his worries about budget deficits and tax cuts.



more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10777-2005Jan14.html

[DeepModem Mom]

1. From the article, agency acted in interest of public at large --

"The Treasury 'was one of those agencies you could always rely upon to provide a real base of information. It didn't always win, but it designed proposals for the public interest at large,' said C. Eugene Steuerle, who headed the department's Office of Tax Analysis during the Reagan administration. Now, he said, 'on a lot of issues, sometimes it doesn't have a seat at the table.'"