I came to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) expecting to serve for a year or so like my predecessors who held the chief economist’s post, but I caught “Potomac fever.” After I stayed for two years as the chief economist, I became Assistant Secretary for Policy and later Deputy Secretary of Labor.I started as the chief economist at the beginning of President Clinton’s second term. Secretary Robert Reich, who created my position, had just left, and Secretary Alexis Herman was embroiled in a prolonged confirmation fight. Unfortunately, not much activity goes on in a position as chief economic adviser to the secretary in the absence of a secretary. And navigating the Byzantine world of the U.S. government—with its alphabet soup of acronyms, such as POTUS, FLOTUS, and CHECO—is hard enough when you have direction.1 Doing it while trying to anticipate future directions is a little like playing pin the tail on the donkey.
