Regardless of who is in the White House, former Goldman Sachs employees seem to surround them.

For President Bill Clinton, it was Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary, who had spent 26 years working at Goldman Sachs.  For the record, Robert Rubin is the person who stopped the CFTC from regulating derivatives in the late 1990s, which might have prevented the housing bubble.

For President George W. Bush, it was Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary and financial bailout architect, who formerly was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs, and Josh Bolten, the President’s Chief of Staff, who formerly was director of legal affairs for the company in London.  For the record, Mr. Paulson is the person who decided to let Goldman Sach’s competitor Lehman Brothers go out of business while bailing out AIG with $85 billion, $13 billion of which went directly to Goldman Sachs.

How about President Barack Obama, who received over $1 million in campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees?  To date, his biggest Goldman Sachs hire is Robert Hormats, the State Department’s Undersecretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs.  A close second is Mark Patterson, former Goldman lobbyist turned Chief of Staff for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who worked against executive compensation caps before going to work for Mr. Geithner.

For those who think meaningful health care reform will be difficult, try meaningful financial services reform.  The foxes are guarding the henhouse.