US Government questions

[superboyac]

OK, I'm starting to research this with more seriousness than I gave it in elementary school.

First Question:
What is the difference between the Cabinet members and "Cabinet-level" officers?
Wikipedia doesn't say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cabinet

(I know 40hz is all over this!)
One of the things I want to do is create a detailed hierarchy of the US Government in TreeSheets.  I'm going to have it here to download so others can benefit from it also.  I want to eventually fill it in with as much information that would be useful for normal folk like us.  And I want to make it very easy for people to know how to contact the right people if there is an issue you are concerned about.  My entire life, I have not had a single contact with the people supposedly representing me, and I imagine it's the same with most people.  The SOPA thing proved to me that one of the few things that normal people can do to them is nag them.  They need to FEEL who they are supposed to represent, and they need to FEEL it without feeling it in their wallet.
Download the TreeSheets .cts file below:

[wraith808]

The cabinet in general refers to the heads of the 15 federal executive departments.  They must be confirmed by the Senate by a simple majority.  Cabinet-level officers refers to those members of the Cabinet that are not heads of one of the aforementioned departments.  Some are, however, governed by the same law of appointment as the Cabinet, but many are not, most notably the Chief of Staff and Press Secretary (which are not subject to the Senate at all), and the Vice President (which is a duly-elected official).

Three interesting links on this:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/taking-a-peek-in-the-cabinet/

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-i-passed-my-us-citizenship-test-by-keeping-the-right-answers-to-myself

(The third one is especially interesting... if only tangentially)

[superboyac]

Thanks wraith!