"Well, we looked around and we couldn't get anybody we liked better to take the job, so we would like you to stick around."
Treasury Secretary Is Asked To Stay
Bush Considered Others Before Extending Offer
By Mike Allen and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 9, 2004; Page A01
President Bush invited Treasury Secretary John W. Snow yesterday to remain on the job after the White House withheld its endorsement for 10 days while aides hinted that he would be replaced.
Snow was kept on only after the White House considered a variety of possible replacements and sounded out at least one top official on Wall Street. That executive turned the White House down, according to financial executives.
Bush was looking for a replacement because Republican leaders on Capitol Hill said he needed a more dynamic outsider of stature to sell skeptical lawmakers on his politically risky proposals to rewrite the tax code and allow workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds.
Administration officials said that when no ideal successor could be found, Bush aides decided to retain Snow to put an end to rampant speculation that the former railroad executive was on his way out. The aides feared that the uncertainty would leave Snow damaged on Wall Street and Capitol Hill as Bush began the fight for his ambitious second-term agenda, and they decided the president would benefit from continuity on the economic team as he developed details of the proposals.
The Washington intrigue was touched off just after Thanksgiving when a senior administration official said Snow could stay as long as he wanted, provided it was not very long. White House officials, asked repeatedly about Snow's status at briefings since then, have refused to say he would stay.
Bush talked to Snow for 10 minutes yesterday in an unscheduled meeting in the Oval Office shortly after 2 p.m. and "asked Secretary Snow to continue to serve in a second term," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
"The president's pleased that Secretary Snow agreed to continue serving as secretary of the Treasury," McClellan said. "He is a valuable member of our economic team."
It was just those words that Snow and his aides had yearned to hear since Bush won reelection five weeks ago. As the bulletins broke on news wires, cheers went up in the Treasury building, next to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Snow made no public statement yesterday. His spokesman, Rob Nichols, said, "The secretary is honored to serve the president and help implement his economic agenda."
The announcement caught even some of Bush's most senior aides by surprise. Several officials said they had been led to believe by the White House that Snow was on his way out, but that his replacement would not be Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., whose name had appeared in news accounts about Snow's future.
Conservatives had been pushing for former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) to replace Snow, but senior White House officials had told activists their candidate was not in contention, fueling talk around Washington that Snow's days were numbered.
Also yesterday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi, one of the original members of Bush's Cabinet, submitted his resignation letter. The administration has now announced the departure of nine of the 15 department secretaries.
The outlook for Snow, 65, who took office in February 2003 after Bush fired the outspoken Paul H. O'Neill, had become a consuming topic in political circles as the White House left his fate in doubt. Even some of Bush's aides expressed bafflement that the president did not end the secretary's highly public political embarrassment by either embracing or replacing him.
McClellan said the White House had allowed the speculation for so long because yesterday was "the first opportunity the president had to sit down and visit with Secretary Snow" about the second term. Snow attended two large Social Security meetings with Bush on Tuesday, but aides said the two did not discuss the secretary's future. Aides said that during a meeting on Social Security early last week Bush told Snow they needed to talk.
Early yesterday afternoon, Snow had walked over to a private area of the White House Mess for a meeting of the economic team. During the meeting, Card came in and told Snow the president wanted to see him, aides said. Card then walked him to the Oval Office. The other economic officials waited to congratulate him after the meeting.
Snow, the former chairman of CSX Inc., has a law degree and a doctorate in economics and was co-chairman of a national panel that developed a response by business to the corporate governance crisis after the collapse of Enron Corp.
White House officials did not say whether Snow's invitation to stay was open-ended, but they also noted that the administration had offered no timetable for how long Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would remain.
Sentiment in Washington conservative circles had shifted to Snow's defense in the past few days. Gramm may have made a highly effective advocate for the president's agenda on Capitol Hill, but with the dollar sliding and worries rising about a potential financial crisis, the outspoken Texan was not seen as the man to soothe foreign exchange markets.
Once Gramm was out of the running, conservatives realized the remaining candidates were Wall Street executives who might put their concern about rising budget deficits ahead of a push for lower taxes, said Stephen Moore, president of the conservative political action committee Club for Growth. Given their options, they decided Snow would be the best Treasury chief to push the partial privatization of Social Security and, especially, a restructuring of the tax code.
Indeed, Snow's record on tax reform would suggest he would be more committed to slashing taxes on savings and investment than Gramm, said Cesar Conda, a former domestic policy aide to Vice President Cheney.
Vince Farrell Jr., chairman of Victory Capital Management in New York, said Snow's reputation has not been harmed, but he said that is because Wall Street viewed Snow as a somewhat ponderous spokesman for the White House's economic agenda rather than a policymaking force in his own right.
Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. in New York, agreed. "My perception is this administration doesn't really want a highly creative, independent Treasury secretary who will lead policy," he said, "so it seems to me Secretary Snow is effective at doing his job."
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