In addition to the President’s Cabinet, Barack Obama has a personal staff of 469 assistants to the president—a record number—almost all of whom are paid more than $100,000 per year.
In addition to this figure, factor in the cost of the benefits, staffs, and offices for 469 presidential assistants.
With that done, consider that there is an army of junior presidential assistants supporting the presidential assistants and another army of and secretaries supporting the junior assistants. All of these staffers—taken together—support the president. That’s a lot of support. It is also a lot of money to spend during a time of high unemployment, record-breaking budget deficits, and an anemic economy.
With the largest personal staff in the history of the presidency, one would think Barack Obama had all the help he could possibly need, but apparently this is not the case. In addition to the Cabinet and his army of presidential assistants, junior assistants, and secretaries, Barack Obama also has a record number of czars on his staff—43.
This number is not a misprint, and you are reading it correctly. The number of czars reporting to Barack Obama is 43, and this number is still increasing. Even Bill Clinton had only eight czars.
Why in the world with a fully-staffed cabinet and the largest personal staff in presidential history does Barack Obama need 43 czars? After all, how much help can one president need?
