Sam Reveals OMB Poverty Spike; Toby Demands Probe
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Toby notices Sam pacing outside his office and humorously questions if Sam is guarding it, establishing their banter.
Sam enters Toby's office and drops a bombshell: the OMB's new poverty formula will statistically increase poverty by 4 million people overnight.
Toby demands immediate investigation into the formula change, recognizing its political fallout potential.
Toby uses a personal analogy about SAT score changes to emphasize the absurdity while reinforcing his directive to Sam.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Anxious urgency tempered by defensive rationalism
Paces taut circuits outside Toby's glass door gripping OMB paper, chuckles defensively at banter before entering, discloses formula details raising threshold to $20,000 and adding 4 million poor, defends as pre-existing reality not political spin, agrees readily to probe old formula and heads out to execute orders.
- • Brief Toby on OMB's politically explosive poverty revision
- • Advocate for data's neutrality amid Toby's skepticism
- • Statistical updates reflect reality, not partisan manipulation
- • Old formula potentially outdated, warranting investigation
Alarmed outrage masking incisive political calculus
Sits at cluttered desk deeply absorbed in newspaper, glances up to spot pacing Sam outside glass door, delivers wry banter to draw him in, reacts with sharp alarm to poverty spike revelation, rejects statistical neutrality defense, issues curt orders for OMB probe into old formula flaws, caps with sarcastic SAT analogy underscoring political peril.
- • Mitigate immediate political damage from poverty stats optics
- • Launch probe to undermine validity of new OMB formula
- • Formula changes create damaging perceptions of failure under Bartlet
- • Old metrics likely flawed, offering leverage for counterattack
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Sam white-knuckles the stark OMB document while pacing urgently outside, brandishing it implicitly as he enters and details the threshold hike to $20,000 adding 4 million poor; serves as narrative catalyst, live wire sparking Toby's alarm and orders, embodying the statistical flashpoint clashing data purity against electoral peril.
Toby hunches over the crinkling newspaper at his desk in solitary focus, using it as a visual anchor for his initial absorption and pauses; he looks up from its pages twice to notice Sam's pacing, transitioning from mundane routine to crisis mode, symbolizing brief normalcy shattered by policy bombshell.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Sam's revelation about the OMB's new poverty formula parallels Bernice's defense of the formula's accuracy, both highlighting the tension between statistical truth and political optics."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"SAM: Under the new formula, poverty is up two percent... Four million new poor people."
"TOBY: Four million?!? ... Four million people became poor on the President's watch?"
"SAM: They didn't become poor. They were poor already. And now we're calling them poor."
"TOBY: It's like when they did that thing with the SAT scores and I got dumber twenty years after I went to college."