During the Clinton years, Congress tried to get rid of the president's Council of Economic Advisers the old-fashioned way: by cutting its already modest budget. The Bush administration seems to have figured out a more effective way to rid the White House of those pesky economists: taking away their offices.

According to the age-old adage, the three most important attributes of property are location, location and location. This is doubly true for the White House, where proximity to the president says everything about your place in the political pecking order. Unfortunately, the CEA has recently been exiled to the Washington equivalent of Siberia.