478 PART FIVE*ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES CHAPTER 20 THE OFFICE OP THE PRESIDENT:LEADING THE NATION 479 ANALYZE元HEt55E为 Policy Erperts The president is also served by the policy experts in the EOP's The White Homse Staff other organizations,who include economists,legal analysts,national security Power and Cantrol specialists,and others.Modern policymaking cannot be conducted in the The modem presidency absence of such expert advice and knowledge.For example,the president has broad responsibilities for guiding the nation's economy.Advising him in this effort is the Council of Economic Advisers,headed by three economists who are assisedby an expert staff.The CEA gathers information to develop indicators of this development enlange the the economy's strength and applies economic theories to various policy president's power?In hat alternatives.In the early 1960s the CEA chairman,Walter Heller,advised ways has惯t时ted new President Kennedy to propose a cut in business taxes as a means of bringing the Presidents rely on thelr problems for the presidend? Cite examples that spport nation's economy out of a recession.Kennedy acoepted Heller's advice, persuaded Congress to enact the legislation,and gained public support when ants in the economy rebounded. The advantages of having expert advice are sometimes offset by the fact that the Cuban misslle crisis in 1962. this group ol advisers to many policy specialists have a narrow view of the nation's priorities.They may Presldent lohn F.Kennedy met think that problems in their policy area are of utmost urgency,and they tend to repeatedly to help him arrve at believe that their preferred solutions are the only satisfactory ones.This outlook his decision to use a navat does not always serve the president's needs.Proposing "the best policy blockade as a means of fordng solution"means little if Cong ress finds it politically unacceptable.Another the Soviet to withdra drawback is that policy experts do not always turn out to be"team players."The norm in the White House is that any disagreements with administration policy should be expressed only in private.Once the president has publicly announced important iigures in any administration.They understand that their first his position,the presidential assissant is expected to support it.However,poy responsibility is to carry out the president's instructons.Nevertheless,the experts do not always find it easy to bite their tongues.The Haryard cconomist president chooses most of them for their prominence in politics,business Matrtin Fetdsfein,who headed the CEA until he resigned-under White House sovernment,or the professions.They may also bring to their office a high level pressure in 194 an election year)publicly and troquonly sated that the of policy expertise and a group commitment.For exampletheretary of Reagan administration's huge budget deficit was a malor threat to the nation's commerce is normally a-prominent businese leader committod to the business economy;his stance directly contradicted Reagan's public claims that the budget ommunity's goals.The loyalty of cahinet secretaries can be split between their eficit was a secondary problem commitment to the president and their concern for interests represented by their departments.Their stature and ideas can sometimes lead them to act too The President's Cabinet independently.Carter believed that he had no choice in 1978 but to fire Joseph Califano,his secretary of health,education,and welfare,for disloyalty after The heads of the fourteen executive departments,such as the Department of Califano had repeatedly expressed disagreement with Carter's policies in Defense and the Department of Agriculture,constitute the president's cabinet. statements to reporters and members of Congress. They are appointed by the president,subject to confirmation by Congress. The Constitution says nothing about a cabinet.It has become a tradition but has no formal authority.When Abraham Lincoln was once unanimously Other Presidential Appointees opposed by his cabinet,he said,"Seven nays and one aye-the ayes have it." The president also appoints the directors and top deputies of other federal Although the cabinet once served as the president's main advisory group,it has agencembeoffederal commissions,and heads of regulatory agencies. not played this role since Herbert Hoover's administration.Dwight D.Eisen- Although they serve the president,these appointees sometimes come to adopt hower tried in the 1950s to restore the cabinet to its former prominence,but he the perspective of the bureaucratic organizations in which they work.They may eventually gave up.As national issues have become increasingly complex,the be "captured"by their organization because they spend nearly all their time on cabinet has become outmoded as a policymaking forum:department heads are its activities and depend heavily on the expertise of career bureaucrats.About likely to understand issues only in their respective policy areas Cabinet 70 percent of presidential appointees have two years or less of federal meetings have been largely reduced to gatherings at which only the most government experience,and most are less familiar with agency activities than general matters are discussed. are the careerists who work under them. Although the cabinet as a collective dectsionmaking body is a thing of the past,the cabinet members,as individuals who head major departments,are Richard M.Pios.Aruerkan Pres 241 "B.Goedon Hoxi.'The Cabinet in the American Presideney,1789-1984"Presidential Sradics Qa2e5pnR1984276-228. ngs Inshe