

	July 19, 2006 hp-20 Assistant Secretary Warshawsky to Leave Treasury for Private Sector WASHINGTON, DC – On July 6, 2006 Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Mark Warshawsky submitted his letter of resignation to the President. Warshawsky made the decision to leave Treasury for the private sector over the last several weeks. His resignation will be effective July 28, after which he will begin working with Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a global human capital consulting firm. The content of Warshawsky's letter of resignation is included herein. ----- July 6, 2006 The Honorable George W. Bush The President of the United States White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: It has been an honor and a privilege to serve in your Administration at the Treasury Department for four and a half years, including the last two years as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy. At this time of transition for the Department, and after achieving many accomplishments for your program of government, I feel it is now an appropriate time for me to leave to return to the private sector. I therefore resign from the office of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, effective after July 28, 2006. Working under your leadership and the leadership of Secretary Snow, often in partnership with others in the Department and your Administration, I am proud of the many successes that I and my office have had in the last years. In particular, the Trustees' Reports were enhanced and all assumptions were reviewed carefully and updated so that precise, transparent and comprehensive measurement would serve as the basis for the essential discussions that citizens and policymakers have had, and in which they still need to fruitfully engage, to reform the Social Security and Medicare programs. Our office put forward a fair and complete assessment of the Terror Risk Insurance Program that served as the basis for the Secretary's recommendation to Congress that this program, appropriate in its time, be successively scaled back to allow the private sector to resume a steadily growing role. We played a major part in the design of the Administration's legislative proposal to put the private defined benefit pension system and its government-sponsored insurer on a stable and sustainable basis and to encourage future growth, so that current and future workers can look forward to getting a secure source of retirement income. I encourage the Congress to complete this important legislation soon. We provided accurate evaluations and forecasts of the performance of the economy, as the basis for the preparation of your annual budgets and as a testament to the need for, and the success of, your tax and regulatory policies. In these efforts, as well as in the many other analyses and pieces of policy advice in various macroeconomic and microeconomic areas including Social Security, FEHBP and flood insurance reform that I provided to the Secretary and other senior officials in the Department and the Administration, I was fortunate to work with the extraordinarily dedicated and creative career and political staffs of the Office of Economic Policy. As Henry Paulson embarks on his term of office, I know that he will want to call upon this remarkably talented group of professionals for insightful, unbiased and reasoned information, analysis, and suggestions. I wish Mr. Paulson well in his stewardship of the Department and the economy and I wish you well in your continued strong leadership of the Federal Government and our great Nation. Sincerely yours, Mark J. Warshawsky Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy - 30 -