An Impossible Budget: Bartlet's Emergency Infant‑Mortality Mandate
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet interrupts Josh's phone call to issue an 'impossible errand'—inserting an infant mortality initiative into the HHS budget before January 1st.
Josh accepts the daunting task despite recognizing its impracticality, committing to mobilize the policy council.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Pressed and professionally focused — he feels the strain of an impossible task but is determined and cooperative, absorbing presidential moral urgency into operational plans.
Sitting at his desk on the phone when Bartlet enters; translates the President's mandate into concrete operational orders, confirms feasibility, acknowledges the deadline, then walks to the bullpen to begin mobilization and instruct Donna to call the Policy Council.
- • Translate Bartlet's moral mandate into executable work plans.
- • Mobilize staff and resources quickly to meet the January 1 printing deadline.
- • The White House must convert presidential priorities into bureaucratic action, even under strain.
- • Staff can pull off around‑the‑clock efforts if properly coordinated.
Not directly shown; implied readiness to be summoned into emergency work.
Mentioned by Josh early in the scene as someone he was calling—implicitly part of the staff network Josh will draw on; not present but invoked as operational support.
- • Provide rapid administrative or analytical support as requested.
- • Help implement last‑minute changes under Josh's direction.
- • Staff duty is to respond to urgent White House needs even during holidays.
- • Those higher up will direct the details; she will execute.
Compelled and slightly guilty — driven by moral conviction but aware of the political and logistical imposition he is making.
Enters Josh's office unannounced, frames the request as urgent and morally necessary, acknowledges logistical difficulty and holiday timing, then departs after receiving Josh's acceptance.
- • Get infant‑mortality funding secured before the January 1 printing.
- • Use executive muscle to convert a previously shelved bill into budgetary reality.
- • Some policy imperatives transcend fiscal calendar constraints.
- • The presidency can (and should) push bureaucracy to meet urgent moral needs.
Weary but ready — accustomed to holiday scrambles, she masks personal frustration with competence and steadiness.
Speaks from the bullpen off-screen, greets the President, hears Josh's summary, asks where to start, and accepts urgent assignment — poised to rally the Policy Council and execute logistics.
- • Activate the Domestic Policy apparatus and Policy Council immediately.
- • Organize staff and resources so the initiative can be packaged for budget insertion.
- • Operational details are fixable if staff mobilizes quickly.
- • Her role is to translate Josh's directives into action without complaint.
Not present; her position is externally invoked and therefore passive here — likely hopeful if she knew, but onstage only as policy text.
Referenced as the sponsor of the infant‑mortality bill that the administration previously shelved for cost reasons; her policy now becomes the immediate object of the President's moral intervention.
- • See her infant‑mortality initiative adopted and funded.
- • Remove the political barrier that kept the bill from committee adoption.
- • The initiative is worth its cost because it saves lives.
- • The executive branch can and should find ways to prioritize human need over fiscal excuses.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The HHS Budget is invoked as the practical vehicle into which the infant‑mortality initiative must be folded. It becomes the target of a last‑minute rewrite and the hinge for interagency work (OMB, HHS, Domestic Policy) to produce a version ready before the January 1 printer deadline.
Olympia Buckland's infant‑mortality initiative functions as the moral catalyst for the scene; Bartlet names it specifically, turning a previously shelved, 'too expensive' policy into the administration's top immediate priority and the content to be shoehorned into the HHS budget.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Josh's bullpen area functions as the immediate operational staging ground following the President's visit: after the mandate, Josh walks to the bullpen to begin mobilizing staff, and Donna replies from off‑screen. The space bridges private instruction and public execution, moving presidential command into staff action.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The Domestic Policy Council is activated as the team Josh instructs Donna to call in order to package the infant‑mortality initiative. It will coordinate policy drafting, offsets, and interagency messaging necessary to fold the initiative into the HHS budget.
Congress is the implicit downstream recipient whose calendar and printing deadlines structure the urgency; the 'before January 1 printing' constraint ties White House action to legislative timing and public disclosure.
The Office of Management and Budget is named as the key implementation partner capable of executing an around‑the‑clock budget rewrite. Bartlet assumes OMB 'works for us,' making it the operational instrument to score costs, find offsets, and push printing deadlines.
The Department of Health and Human Services is the formal policy vehicle into which the infant‑mortality initiative will be placed. It is invoked as the target administrative home for funding and program authority once the White House repackages the initiative for the budget.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet's concern about infant mortality rates directly causes him to task Josh with the urgent policy initiative, linking personal guilt to political action."
"Bartlet's concern about infant mortality rates directly causes him to task Josh with the urgent policy initiative, linking personal guilt to political action."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: Listen, this is going to sound crazy but Olympia Buckland had an infant mortality bill that we asked her not to take out of committee 'cause it was too expensive."
"JOSH: I... Yes, I think that you're saying that before it goes to the printer on January 1st, you want to rewrite the federal budget."
"JOSH: Yes, sir. I can."