How Many Czars do we have?

[NeMont]

I see that in giving up the HHS post Daschle also relinquished his title of White House Health czar. Earlier today the White House Performance czar quit because of some tax trouble. The is probably going to be a car czar.

Carole Browner is the energy czar, Professor Cass Sunstein is the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs czar

Retired Admiral Dennis Blair to become the Director of National Intelligence, another czar post. Blair will manage a 16-agency bureaucracy.


*Czar: The term originated from Caesar, which came to be defined as an authoritarian ruler. The term ?Kaiser? is a variant and was used in Germany to describe the totalitarian ruler.

Why do we need a Cabinet Secretary and a czar for every dept? Are czar's confirmed or just appointed by the President?

nemont

 

[TFinalshot]

Appointed, no need for confirmation, the President as well as the confirmed cabinet officials can hire "Czar's" at their won discretion, they are referred to as an SCS employees. Grade workers go up to GS 15, SCS employees are special workers and their pay and duties are negotiated, however, i think there's a clause that states that none can make more than the president, today that's about $400k or it might be up to $450k.

 

[NeMont]

T,
Thanks, So if there is a cabinet level post already why would there be a need to a White House level czar of anything? Have other administration had as many White House level czars?

Nemont

 

[wetmule]

They need to hire a Vetting Czar to vett out all the tax cheats, I wonder who would vett the Vetting Czar?

 

[AZStickman]

I'm having a hard time embracing the liberal dream team too....The czar role basically relegates the secretaries to middle manager status. Another vertical tier of bureaucracy... Terry

 

[TFinalshot]

Have other administration had as many White House level czars?


I cant tell you for sure, but what I do know is that unusual circumstances should be met with unusual responses. That said, we really have never even considered Czars until Bush (I'm not picking on him or blaming him, I'm just pointing out when the first ?Czar? type position was created, that I can remember) hire one to take care of our Nation, but made it a cabinet level position ta boot, the EPA Administrator was the last one I can recall, Ruckelshaus was the first, and that was one under Nixon. . . but that too was made into an Administrative position, it's bit different than the Cabinet, in fact, it's independent of the Cabinet, kinda like the FBI.

As for specialists, I'll bet there's about the same now as there were in the recent past, they come and go and new positions are created and dismantled all the time. . .

The question of why we need more "Czar" like positions is a good one, it certainly seems to be a way to broaden the bureaucracy, but again, Bush still, to this day, holds the top-dog seat for growing government, even over Roosevelt, these specialist positions will come and go, the new Homeland Security Department is here to say, and I'd add that it too really was not necessary. . .

 

[NeMont]

Are you talking GHWB or GWB? Clinton had General Barry R. McCaffrey as his drug czar, Gary Samore was Clinton's Weapons of Mass Destruction czar. Bruce Lehman was the National Information Infrastructure czar.

I have no doubt of the growth in the size and intrusiveness under GWB.

Now there are czar's for everything, even a proposed poverty czar. Seems like a lot of czars to me.

Sec. State Hillary Clinton just named Todd D. Stern, as the Climate change czar, so apparently a czar can either be in the chain of command either above or below the cabinet level.

I guess GWB had all these special envoys which is really a czar but is called something different.

Anyway I just started seeing all the czars and thought maybe the Russian Imperial Palace had moved to Washington.

Nemont

 

[TFinalshot]

we're mixing czars with cabinet or appointed positions. . . anyhow it makes no difference, it's all the same, and i've seen more and more "czars" in recent years.

I was talking about a real Czar, like adding the EPA and the administrator. There's more but I cant remember a new addition to the cabinet level before the homeland security post, until you get to Nixon and the EPA. Nonetheless, Bush did add a permanent czar and grow the government more than any past president even more than Regan, and FDR before that . . .