A proposal to cut the deficit

Just eliminate all senior administration officials other than Karl Rove.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 - Even as President Bush pursues a sweeping agenda to overhaul Social Security and the tax code, his economic team is thinner now than at any time since he took office.

About one-third of the senior policy positions at the Treasury Department, which is central in both the tax and Social Security battles, are empty or about to be.

The office of the United States trade representative, which is in the midst of global and regional trade negotiations, is being led by a caretaker, and Mr. Bush has yet to nominate a permanent trade representative.

And though Mr. Bush announced Wednesday that Harvey S. Rosen would be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Mr. Rosen is expected to return to his teaching post at Princeton by summer's end.

[...]

Administration officials said much of the delay simply reflected the need to conduct thorough background checks.

Numerous officials said they were determined to avoid "another Kerik" situation, a reference to Bernard B. Kerik, who withdrew his nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security after saying that he had failed to pay employment taxes for a nanny.

But some Republicans said some candidates may have been discouraged by a sense that the Treasury Department had far less power to set policy than did Karl Rove, who was recently named Mr. Bush's deputy chief of staff for policy.

"I think there's a concern on the part of some people that they wouldn't be able to do anything," said Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, adding that Mr. Snow had served as more of a salesman for Mr. Bush's policies than as a developer of those policies.

You'd think that with Karl Rove in charge of everything, we could save millions in salaries for non-essential policy advisors.

I love the "Kerik defense." Are there other guys out there lying about their past, using apartments provided for WTC workers as a love nest, and associating with organized crime figures while service as a NYC police chief? Oh yeah, and "failing to pay taxes on a [POSSIBLY NON-EXISTENT] nanny." Jeebus, the Times' WH reporters can sure act as tools, can't they?