The President's Cabinet: Who/what are they?

Question

Presidents rely heavily on their Cabinet secretaries for important decisions concerning public policy. How many cabinet positions currently exist? What are they and who occupies the position of "Secretary" in each?

Here is some info: The Cabinet: http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/por/c...

Answer 1

mmm

Answer 2

To be blunt, Cabinet officers are figureheads that act as spokespeople for the President concerning administration policies for each department.  The folks that acutally do the heavy lifting are many rungs below the Secretaries and Undersecretaries.  We could do with some elimination of the superfulous Cabinet positions.

Answer 3

I would dispute that presidents rely heavily on their cabinet secretaries for important decisions.  That is an older model of decision-making.  Current presidents rely heavily on White House staff who are pure political appointees and answer solely to the president.  An example of this is Bush's reliance on Rove and Card.  Presidents often find that cabinet secretaries develop their own loyalties and their own agendas by virtue of managing their departments.  This can make the cabinet Secretaries unreliable for advice.  Also cabinet secretaries have to be confirmed by the Senate, so the president might not be able to pick his top choice for the position.  If he settles on someone more moderate than he would like, then he might not rely on them for as much advice.  

To answer your question, there are 15 cabinet positions:  Agriculture, Interior, State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Homeland Security, Treasury, Labor, Transportation, Energy, Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development and Veteran's Affairs.  

You can find the secretaries at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cab...