Biden plans to do more with less as VP

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Incoming U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says he wants to do more with less when he takes office in Washington next week.

Biden says he wants to "restore the balance," after an unprecedented assertion of authority by Vice President Dick Cheney during President George Bush's administration, The New York Times said.

But Biden said he wants doesn't want to return to the days when the vice president was barely seen and seldom heard.

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," Biden told the Times in an interview published Thursday. "The Bush-Cheney relationship hasn't tasted very good."

The vice president-elect said the power Cheney had didn't result in effective outcomes.

"The only value of power is the effect, the efficacy of its use," he said.

Biden said his duties currently include convening a weekly meeting of President-elect Obama's national security team, as well as weekly meetings with top domestic advisers. The Delaware Democrat also said he produced, at Obama's request, a memorandum of his recommendations for top appointments, all of which were accepted.

"He had the same list," Biden told the Times. "It was uncanny."

An editor at conservative magazine The Weekly Standard wrote Biden would be "the least consequential vice president since Alben Barkley," the No. 2 man under President Harry S. Truman, which Biden said was fine.

"It's OK if that's what everyone perceives," he said. "It's irrelevant what the outside world perceives. What is relevant is whether or not I'm value-added."