Otherwise, Biden said he would not emulate any previous vice presidency, but would instead seek to provide advice and counsel on every critical decision Obama would make. He said he was closely involved in all the cabinet appointments made during the transition. Biden was also named to head the new White House Task Force on Working Families, an initiative to improve the middle class's economic well-being. In his last act as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden went on a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan during the second week of January 2009, meeting with the leadership of those countries. At noon on January 20, 2009, Biden became the 47th vice president of the United States, sworn into the office by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. He is the first U.S. vice president from Delaware and the first Roman Catholic to attain that office. In the early months of the Obama administration, Biden assumed the role of a behind-the-scenes counselor, often adjudicating disputes among Obama's "team of rivals". Obama compared Biden's efforts to a basketball player "who does a bunch of things that don't show up in the stat sheet". Biden played a key role in gaining Senate support for several major pieces of legislation, and was a main factor in convincing Senator Arlen Specter to switch from a Republican to a Democrat. Biden lost an internal debate to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding his opposition to sending 21,000 new troops to the war in Afghanistan, but his skepticism was still considered valuable in the administration, and in 2009 Biden's views gained more influence as Obama reconsidered his Afghanistan strategy. Biden visited Iraq about every two months, becoming the administration's point man in delivering messages to Iraqi leadership about expected progress in the country. More generally, overseeing Iraq policy became Biden's responsibility: Obama was said to have said, "Joe, you do Iraq." Biden said Iraq "could be one of the great achievements of this administration". His January 2010 visit to Iraq in the midst of turmoil over banned candidates from the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in 59 of the several hundred candidates being reinstated by the Iraqi government two days later. By 2012, Biden had made eight trips there, but his oversight of U.S. policy in Iraq receded with the exit of U.S. troops in 2011. Biden was also in charge of the oversight role for infrastructure spending from the Obama stimulus package intended to help counteract the ongoing recession, and stressed that only worthy projects should get funding. He talked with hundreds of governors, mayors, and other local officials in this role.