With a $100,000 budget for redecorating, a resident pastry chef and 35 bathrooms to choose from.

Working from home won't be too much of a strain on the first family. But behind the dazzling

Palladian elegance, the White House can seem pretty small. Wedged into a couple of blocks

in downtown Washington, it's certainly modest compared with the responsibility

that weighs on its tenants. George Washington had to have it enlarged to accommodate his family.

Billits for the president's senior staff are famously cramped. On property websites

that pry into the world's most opulent state residences, it barely makes the top 10.

But there's one feature of Joe Biden's new workspace that is genuinely colossal.

The intro. The first pictures of the new president at his desk in the Oval Office showed him working through a pile of executive orders.

It came up to his neck.

Two days into the Biden presidency, this is checks and balance. I'm John Fido, the economist's U.S. editor.

Each week we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in depth.

Today, how might President Biden begin to turn things around. Joe Biden's inauguration took place in a capital city transformed by tide security, a pandemic,

and four years of a presidency that resembled a denial of service attack on American governance.

The list of problems needing urgent attention is staggering.

COVID, the slum, racism, climate, and the small matter of trust in the democratic process itself. How quickly can he begin

to fix them? With me as ever to discuss all of this are Charlotte Howard, the economists New York Bureau Chief and John Fasman, the digital editor, Charlotte John, happy birthday.

Who are we saying Happy Birthday too?

The podcast is exactly one year old.

This is episode number 52, so it's our first birthday.

Happy birthday to you too.

I was very confused. Where's the cake?

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