| It took about a year, but eventually Alba got into a regular class
Hillary and I kept in touch with the Somoza family, and in 2002, I spoke at the girls high school graduationThey both went on to college, because Anastasia and her parents were determined to give Alba all the opportunities she deserved, and werent shy about asking others, including me, to helpEvery month, the agency liaison who headed the casework operation sent me a report on the people wed helped, along with a few of the moving thank-you letters they sent
In addition to the staff cuts, I announced an executive order to cut administrative expenses 3 percent throughout the government, and a reduction in the salaries of top appointees and in their perks, like limousine service and private dining roomsIn a move that would prove to be a tremendous morale booster, I changed the rules of the White House Mess to allow more junior staff to use what had been the private preserve of high-level White House officials
Our young staffers were working long hours and weekends, and it seemed foolish to me to require them all to leave for lunch, order in, or bring a paper bag with food from homeBesides, access to the White House Mess implied that they, too, were importantThe mess was a wood-paneled room with good food prepared by navy cartier santos 100 watch personnelI ordered lunch from it almost every day and enjoyed going down to visit with the young people who worked in the kitchenOnce a week they served Mexican dishes I especially likedAfter I left office, the mess was again closed to all but senior staffI believe our policy was good for morale and productivity
With all the extra work and fewer people to do it, we would have to rely more than ever not only on those junior staffers, but also on the thousand-plus volunteers who put in long hours, some of them virtually full-timeThe volunteers opened the mail, sent form replies when appropriate, filled requests for information, and did countless other tasks, without which the White House would have been far less responsive to the American peopleAll the volunteers got in return for their efforts, apart from the satisfaction of serving, was an annual thank-you reception Hillary and I hosted for them on the South LawnThe White House couldnt function without them
Besides the specific cuts I had already decided on, I was convinced that with a longer-term systematic approach, we could save a lot more money and improve government servicesIn Arkansas, I had initiated a Total Quality Management program that had achieved positive resultsOn March 3, I announced that Al Gore would lead a six-month review of all chanel fashion federal operationsAl took to the job like a duck to water, bringing in outside experts and consulting widely with government employeesHe kept at it for eight years, helping us to eliminate hundreds of programs and 16,000 pages of regulations, to reduce the federal workforce by 300,000, making this the smallest federal government since 1960, and to save $136 million in tax money
While we were getting organized and dealing with the controversies in the press, most of my time in January and February was devoted to filling in the details of the economic planOn Sunday, January 24, Lloyd Bentsen appeared on Meet the PressHe was supposed to give nonspecific answers to all questions regarding the details of the plan, but he went a little further than that, announcing that we would propose a consumption tax of some kind and that a broad-based energy tax was under considerationThe next day, interest rates on the governments thirty-year bond fell from 79 percent, the lowest rate in six years
Meanwhile, we were struggling with the budget detailsAll the spending cuts and taxes that raised real money were controversialFor example, when I met with Senate and House leaders on the budget, Leon Panetta suggested that we have a one-time three-month delay in increasing the Social Security cost-of-living hermes birkin bags allowanceMost experts agreed that the COLA was too high, given the low rate of inflation, and the delay would save $15 billion over five yearsSenator Mitchell said that the suggested delay was regressive and unfair, and that he couldnt support itNeither would the other senatorsWed have to find that $15 billion elsewhere
Over the weekend of January 3031, I brought the cabinet and senior White House staff to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Marylands Catoctin MountainsCamp David is a beautiful wooded site, with comfortable cabins and recreational facilities, staffed by men and women from the navy and the Marine CorpsIt was the perfect setting for us to get to know one another better and talk about the year aheadI also invited Stan Greenberg, Paul Begala, and Mandy GrunwaldThey felt that they had been shut out of the transition, and that an obsession with the deficit had overtaken every other objective I had advanced in the campaignThey thought Al and I were courting disaster by disregarding the deeper concerns and interests of the people who had elected usI sympathized with themFor one thing, they hadnt been in on the hours of discussions that led most of us to the conclusion that if we didnt deal with the deficit, we couldnt achieve sustained strong growth and that my other campaign commitments, gucci bag at least those that cost money, would die in the stagnant backwater of a sluggish economy
I let Mandy and Stan start the discussionMandy outlined the anxiety of the middle class about jobs, retirement, health care, and educationStan said that voters most important concerns were, in order, jobs, health-care reform, welfare reform, and then deficit reduction, and that if deficit reduction was going to require the middle class to pay more taxes, I had darn sure better do something else for themHillary then described how wed failed in Arkansas in my first term by doing too many things at once, without a clear story line and an effort to prepare people for a long, sustained struggleThen she told them about the success wed had the second time around, by focusing on one or two issues every two years, and laying out long-term goals, along with short-term benchmarks of progress against which we could be judgedThat kind of approach, she said, enabled me to develop a story line people could understand and supportIn response, someone pointed out that we couldnt develop a story line as long as we were awash in leaks, all of which concerned the most controversial proposalsAfter the weekend, the consultants tried to come up with a communications strategy that would take us beyond the daily leaks and wholesale tiffany jewelry controver |