This analysis — reported by AEI and sourced to JP Morgan researchers — examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy.
It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all.
AEI, Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required, November 25, 2009
http://blog.american.com/?p=7572
In the Obama administration over 90 percent of the players’ prior experience was in the public sector, academia, or law practices. Virtually no “business experience” per se.
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Ken’s Take:
(1) Quibble with the numbers, but directionally the conclusion fits — which is why the Faux Stimulus didn’t work, why the spending is out of control, why there’s sloppy implementation (think Cash for Clunkers), and why businesses refuse to rebuild their payrolls.
(2) Note that the analysis was sourced to JP Morgan. I’ve heard from my sources that off-the-record boardroom commentaries re: the Obama administration has turned very, very negative. But, public commentary is constrained by fear of vindictive government retribution (think pay caps, voiding of contracts, etc.). Surprised me that JPM is associated with the analysis.
(3) Liberal blogs have marshalled to debunk the 10% number for Obama’s advisers. Their rebuttals are laughable — largely claiming that private sector experience includes having had a parent who had a real job. having been a lawyer with at least one private sector client, having run a campaign, or having been a university administrator. For example, here are a couple of my favorites:
Vice President Joe Biden – Private experience: Yes. Biden’s father worked in the private sector his entire life — unsuccessfully for a critical period. Biden attended a private university’s law school (Syracuse), and operated a successful-because-of-property-management law practice for three years before winning election to the U.S. Senate. Running a campaign is a private business, too — and Biden’s first campaign was masterful entrepreneurship.
Secretary of Interior Kenneth L. Salazar – Private sector experience: Yes. Besides a distinguished career in government, as advisor and Cabinet Member with Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, Salazar was a successful private-practice attorney from 1981 to 1985, and then again from 1994 to 1998 when he won election as Colorado’s Attorney General. Salazar’s family is in ranching, and he is usually listed as a “rancher from Colorado.”
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis – Private sector experience: Yes. Solis’s father was a Teamster and union organizer who contracted lead poisoning on the job; her mother was an assembly line worker for Mattel Toys. She overachieved in high school and ignored her counselor’s advice to avoid college, and earned degrees from Cal Poly-Pomona and USC. She held a variety of posts in federal government before returning to California to work for education and win election to the California House and California Senate, and then to Congress.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – Private sector experience: Yes. Duncan earned Academic All-American honors in basketball at Harvard. His private sector is among the more unusual of any cabinet member’s, and more competitive. Duncan played professional basketball: “From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia with the Eastside Spectres of the [Australian] National Basketball League, and while there, worked with children who were wards of the state. He also played with the Rhode Island Gulls and tried out for the New Jersey Jammers.” Since leaving basketball he’s worked in education, about four years in a private company aiming to improve education.
To verify the above examples — and for a few more chuckles — check out
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/obamas-well-qualified-cabinet-conservatives-hoaxed-by-j-p-morgan-chart-that-verifies-prejudices/
The Homa Files 