[churchillbuff]

O'NEill's a disaster. Steve Forbes for Treasury Secretary -- somebody who believes in tax cuts.

[KantianBurke]

Some dumbass Bushbot went nuts a few weeks ago when I suggested that Mr. ONeil should be canned. Wonder if that creep will say anything here in response to this new bit of news?

[Common Tator]

There are two ways to get bush to do what you want. Neither one is to leak to Bob Novak.

Anyone who thinks they can influence Bush by going to Novak has to be several French Fries shy of a Happy Meal.

The Bush admnistration will leak to Dan Rather before it would let Novak know what is going on.

[kellynla]

what about replacements for Greenspam, Ashcroft & Ridge...let's have a fresh team to start out the New Year...pulllllezzzzzz

[jackbill]

Unfortunately, my candidate, Larry Kudlow, wouldn't stand a chance. But Larry is the kind of guy that President Bush needs - some one who is articulate and not afraid of taking on the enemy.

Robert Rubin was a sleazy liar, but he was "up-front". The media loved him, even though they didn't understand a thing that he was saying.

[AmericaUnited]

The name of Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia is being mentioned in Bush's inner circle.

I don't think Zell has enough "gravitas" for this job, but its fun to think of Georgia's new Republican governor announcing his replacement in the senate.

[Rodney King]

Forbes is a great idea! He can use the position to campaign for tax code reform.

[ancient_geezer]

Mark for reference.

[Leto]

Bump for Forbes at Treasury. kudlow would be good too, but he had a drug problem and he would be killed politically.

Forbes is the man to oversee Tax Reform.

[WOSG]

It is interesting that in my mind Phil Gramm came to mind, even before it was mentioned. I know he is looking for private life, but he might be the right man. He certainly knows banking and taxes and would be a good man to promote the right policies.

[Charlotte Corday]

Here's the little tidbit which is symptomatic of one of our biggest problems:

its problem is Treasury secretary, not national economic director. The latter position was created in 1993 specially for financial maven and Democratic donor Robert Rubin, but he exerted little impact

1. The Democrats create a useless bureaucratic position to reward a big time fundraiser.

2. The Republicans perpetuate its existence despite the fact that prior to 1993 our country had gotten along quite well for 206 years without a "national economic director".

3. Repeat steps (1) and (2) about five million times, going back over every time the Republicans have succeeded the Democrats in the White House since 1952, and you get a pretty good idea of why our government is the way it is.

[Banjoguy]

Larry Kudlow

[Sonny M]

Personally, I want Forbes in as treasury secretary. He believes in tax cuts, is a proponent of a flat tax, though I know he has also talked about a national sales tax, but I don't know his view on that. As for Lindsey, I'd dump him. He's taking a beating and is constantly a downer, and a poor communicator. I doubt that Armey or Gramm would want to do it, but personally, I'd love to see either of them in there.

[Cindy]

[Bonaparte]

Why not lure Thomas Sowell away from the Hoover Institute?

[Bonaparte]

From Human Events last year -- O'Neill Wants Bush To Concentrate On 'Global Warming'

[Bonaparte]

Some more curious reports about O'Neill's checkered past.

[Action-America]

The problem isn't O'Neill.  The problem is that Dubya isn't smart enough to set economic policy without the help of qualified advisors and he isn't listening to the qualified people around him.

The thing that made Reagan such a great President was not his own intelligence.  It was that he knew that he was not smart enough to make all those decisions alone and hired the best people in each field and then listened to them.

Certainly, O'Neill doesn't agree with Dubya on a number of economic issues.  But, that is with good reason.  Although O'Neill may have a few shortcomings, he is much more of an expert on the economy than Dubya could ever dream of becoming.  But, typical of Dubya, rather than listen to the experts around him, Dubya blindly goes his own way and dictates to the experts, that he should be listening to, what position he has already decided on.  If Dubya would listen to the experts around him, he wouldn't have such economic problems.    But, that would mean taking a stand on a tough issue and we all know that Dubya only takes a stand on issues that he is sure he can win.  It seems that he's more worried about being seen as a loser, than actually doing something to fix the economy.