President obama says he wants to reform public schools and greatly increase federal spending on education. But when newsweek called Education Secretary Arne Duncan's office last week, the phone rang for two minutes before someone picked up. The person at the other end said that she normally doesn't answer phones, but added apologetically, "There's a lot of empty offices around here." Duncan is not the only new cabinet appointee who is lonely at the top. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who must be the most overworked, if not overwhelmed, person in government, is surrounded by the empty offices of a dozen top officials at Treasury. He relies instead on three Bush administration holdovers and a patchwork of senior appointees who don't require Senate approval. No wonder he lost track of the AIG bonuses. Trying to prepare for the upcoming G20 summit to save the globalbanking system, British Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell vented his frustration over his government's inability to get phone calls returned by the U.S. Treasury Department. "There is nobody there," he announced in an off-the-record remark that leaked out. "You can't believe how difficult it is."
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