you're missing a lot.
Locked in the Cabinet
President Clinton's first Secretary of Labor reports gracefully on four years of frustration.
'Mr. Reich's own cause is to close the growing gap between rich and poor. During his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton, borrowing liberally from Mr. Reich's writings, promised to invest in job training and education. But once in office he fell under the sway of the deficit hawks -- especially Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, described by Mr. Reich as the ''most powerful man in the world.'' Too much Federal spending, the deficit hawks argued, could cause the bond brokers on Wall Street to lose confidence, which would drive up interest rates, which could choke off the economy -- which could cost Mr. Clinton his re-election. Since cutting middle-class entitlement programs would be political suicide, the poor (who don't vote) must take the hit. Hence, no money for Mr. Reich's programs to retrain out-of-work Americans.
Unable to break this closed circuit, Mr. Reich was reduced to hanging around the parking lot between the West Wing and the Old Executive Office Building, seeing if he could pick up any gossip about the important decisions being made inside. Finally, he found a back channel in his old friend Hillary Clinton, who told him to write down his ideas on unmarked stationery. But then the wicked Morris came along to steal the President's brain. (The President's conscience, for most of Mr. Reich's tale, is not much in evidence.) The Democratic-controlled Congress was no help. ''We're owned by them. Business,'' Representative Marty Sabo, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, matter-of-factly explains. ''That's where the campaign money comes from now. In the 1980's we gave up on the little guys.''
https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/27/reviews/970427.27thomast.html
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