The Republican Party has always been the party of big business - that's why it exists - but rarely has a Republican administration contained as many corporate representatives as that now running the United States economy.
The business-related choices of President George W. Bush are, with one or two exceptions, seen as pragmatists rather than ideologues, or as a White House spokesman called them, "strong, capable people of integrity, who are proven leaders with diverse experience". They are not at all like the true believers who rushed to Washington after Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, or the zealots who seized Congress under Newt Gingrich in 1994. Many of them were in their prime in the late 1980s, the era of George W's father, President George Bush.
Influenced, no doubt, by the size of the growing environmentalist movement in the US and by the narrow majority in Congress, these new "old" Republicans have mainly played to the middle ground rather than the right in their confirmation hearings. There was no talk of abolishing government departments or phasing out federal programmes (Gingrich's crowd wanted to get rid of the education department).
"It appears to be a very centrist, pragmatic, very managerial group," said Russell Roberts, a St Louis economist who described the new Cabinet as "competent, but without a philosophical bent". It is "the Business Roundtable taking over the executive branch", said Robert Reich, one-time Labour Secretary in the Clinton administration.
While the new Capitol Gang brings a wealth of corporate experience from the old economy, there are no policy-makers from the new economy, nor is there anyone from Wall Street. This is the first administration since the 1970s without a cabinet member from the world of financial markets like Robert Rubin, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, Treasury Secretary from 1995 to 1999.
It is also the wealthiest cabinet in US history. President Bush is worth an estimated $11 million (€11.94 million) and Dick Cheney $19 million. Three of the 17 cabinet members are millionaires and 10 are multi-millionaires, compared to seven millionaires in the cabinet of Bill Clinton (who left office owing millions in legal fees). This is not at all unusual in corporate America, but it hardly produces a symphony of American diversity.
At the top are two former oilmen, President Bush, who never quite made it in the oil business, and Vice-President Mr Cheney, who until chosen as Mr Bush's running mate was the successful chief executive of the Dallas oil and gas company, Halliburton. These two men set the tone, and "the one they have set, the business community is pleased with", said William Miller, political director for the US Chamber of Commerce.
The corporate bias of the US administration is a cause for rejoicing among big business lobbyists on Washington's K Street, whose job it is to win financial concessions for business while keeping the government from interfering with business activities.
By virtue of their backgrounds, sympathies and instincts, the new cabinet members are likely to meet the lobbyists half way. Indeed one of their number, Andrew Card, a former motor industry lobbyist (also a millionaire) has made it inside the White House as Mr Bush's chief of staff.
Many Cabinet members are obligated to their business pals, having attained office with the support of massive political donations from corporate America (though big business always hedges its bets and bankrolls Republicans and Democrats). Mr Bush, for example, is beholden to the Texas-based electricity and gas provider, Enron, which took in revenues of $101 billion dollars last year.
Enron's chief executive Kenneth Lay was the most generous contributor to the Texas governor's presidential campaign. He is now urging that energy-starved California should override its environmental regulations to allow the building of more power stations.
The new Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans an old oildrilling partner of the president who raised a record $100 million for Mr Bush during the presidential campaign, does not have to be told of the priorities of America's energy providers. He was chief executive of the Denver-based energy company Tom Brown before taking up what is the dream cabinet post for any businessman.
Even national security adviser Condoleezza Rice the only professional academic on the top team, has oil industry connections. She sat on the board of Chevron, the world's largest integrated petroleum company, and has a 130,000-ton tanker named after her.
The appointment of John Ashcroft as Attorney General has also gladdened some corporate hearts. Last year he accepted $18,000 in political contributions from Microsoft, the giant software company which is fighting a court-ordered breakup stemming from an antitrust case brought by the Justice Department Mr Ashcroft now heads.
Mr Ashcroft also took a campaign contribution of $5,000 from Schering-Plough a pharmaceutical company for which he helped extend the patent on an allergy medicine, and he received more campaign contributions than any of his Senate colleagues from Monsanto, the pioneer of genetically engineered foods in the US.
Monsanto could hardly have wished for a more sympathetic administration. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman both served on the board of Monsanto while in the private sector. In this White House GM is in. Mr Rumsfeld was chief executive officer of G.D. Searle & Co and General Instrument Corporation.
His declared assets of $61 million include hundreds of individual shareholdings in defence and electronics industries. Mr Bush's choice for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mitch Daniels (who has personal assets of $18 million), is also well connected to the pharmaceutical industry, as senior vice-president of the drugs and medicine company, Eli Lilly.
The intimate relationship between Cabinet members and special interests raises questions about whether the Bush administration is too close to corporate America to police it. Environmentalists are particularly worried by the anti-regulation instincts of a cabinet with so many front-enders drawn from traditional pollution-making industries.
They point to Mr Bush's poor environment record in Texas and his instinct to give mining, energy and logging interests more access to public lands, such as the unspoiled Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Mr Bush has signalled which way he is leaning. The President said he will reverse many of Mr Clinton's executive orders limiting commercial activities on federal lands and expanding wilderness refuges, and he has promised property owners and mining companies that they will get a warmer reception in Washington than before.
They will certainly find a friendly face in the office of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, another lobbyist with a record of siding with big business, and until recently a critic of global warming theories, who has been put in charge of America's 378 national parks and 500 wildlife refuges.
Ms Norton served on the advisory board of the Defenders of Property Rights, a law group helping private landowners fight environmental regulations. As attorney general of Colorado she challenged the Endangered Species Act as unconstitutional and as a private lawyer she lobbied for companies like NL Industries of Houston, a lead products enterprise accused in lawsuits of several cases of exposing children to lead paint.
Her record prompted Carl Pope, director of the pro-environment Sierra Club, to call the appointment a "natural disaster". Ms Norton has promised however to uphold environmental laws, and won Congressional approval by convincing some Democrats she had become a "passionate conservationist". Critics hope she will be restrained by Ms Christine Todd Whitman (assets $6.4 million), an outspoken moderate who has been made head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
While big business is happy, the trade unions are waiting to see how the new administration shapes up. Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, former chairman of the Alcoa Aluminium enterprise (worth $63 million) is known for his good relations with unions, according to Denise Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the national AFLCIO union umbrella group.
Often described as a classic blue-ribbon, big-business, Republican with moderate economic views, Mr O'Neill refused to make political donations when chief executive officer of Alcoa, and worked in a cubicle alongside his employees.
In his first big test, Mr Bush went for business over labour. Two weeks after he became president, a NAFTA panel ruled that the US must open its roads to Mexican hauliers. The administration accepted the ruling, reversing Mr Clinton's union-backed policy of refusing entry to Mexican lorries.
The trucking industry, which took issue with the Clinton administration over weight limits and safety issues, is enthusiastic about the new cabinet. Walter McCormick, president of the American Trucking Associations said: "We are delighted with the appointments so far."
The message being sent out from the Bush White House to American big business after less than a month is office could perhaps be summed up as simply as, "keep on trucking".
