Too busy golfing, vacationing, “pivoting to the economy,” to care.
Executive Summary
The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) conducted an analysis of the Presidential Schedule, as released by the White House, to determine the number of times President Barack Obama has met directly with his Cabinet secretaries. To provide more comprehensive coverage, GAI used the official White House calendar and PoliticoPresidential calendar as our primary sources. The study reviewed all dates after the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Affordable Care Act”) on March 23, 2010 through November 30, 2013 (1,348 days)
• President Obama met with Secretaries Clinton and Kerry from the State Department the second most times, totaling 84 face-to-face encounters
• President Obama met with Secretaries Geithner and Lew from the Treasury Department the third highest number of times, totaling 79 meetings
• The other 14 meetings are with the secretaries from the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Justice, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and included two meetings with the Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (not an official Cabinet level post)
• The Presidential schedule does not document a single one-on-one meeting with Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services. However, there is one instance of Secretary Sebelius meeting jointly with the President and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner