Ford’s knowledge of the federal budget was encyclopedic; they arranged for him to conduct the annual press briefing on it (a subject so arcane that JFK, LBJ, and Nixon never attempted it). Cheney insisted that few presidents had a better grasp of the workings of government: “He knew it cold. This is a guy who spent twenty-five years on the Appropriations Committee and on the Defense Appropriation Subcommittee. I can remember him correcting a budget analyst on how many park rangers were in the National Park Service.
