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President-elect Obama Selects Federal Budget Director

By Stephen Kaufman

President-elect Barack Obama announced his choices to run the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), selecting Peter Orszag as director and Robert Nabors as deputy director, and said his administration would be closely reviewing the federal budget to make it "more efficient and more effective at serving the American people."

Speaking in Chicago on November 25, Obama said, "A nation's budget reflects its values and its priorities." In response to the current economic crisis, he has set goals of cutting taxes on middle-class Americans and creating 2.5 million new jobs, especially in areas such as energy, technology and health care modernization.

"This is not just a challenge but also an opportunity to improve the health care that Americans rely on and to bring down the costs that taxpayers, businesses and families have to pay," the president-elect said.

But he added that to make those investments, spending cuts in the federal budget will be necessary. He said he will target "a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness, or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups."

In the Obama administration, the OMB "will not only help design a budget and manage its implementation, but it's also going to make sure that our government ... is more efficient and more effective at serving the American people," he said.

Orszag is currently director of the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. During the Clinton administration, he was special assistant to the president for economic policy and senior economic adviser at the National Economic Council. Prior to that, he was senior adviser and senior economist at the president's Council of Economic Advisers and a White House staff economist.

"He knows what works and what doesn't, what's worthy of our precious tax dollars and what is not. Just because a program, a special interest tax break or corporate subsidy is hidden in this year's budget does not mean it will survive the next," Obama said.

At OMB, Orszag would direct preparation of the president's annual budget proposal. The process involves evaluating federal agency programs, assessing competing funding demands and setting funding priorities. OMB will also oversee the Obama administration's procurement, financial management, information collection and regulatory policies.

The OMB director-designate "has made significant contributions in our understanding of all the major economic challenges we're now confronting - from reducing medical costs to saving Social Security to fighting global climate change to helping put the dream of a college degree within reach of more students," Obama said.

As OMB deputy director, Rob Nabors would assist Orszag in the task. Nabors is currently working in the House of Representatives as staff director of the House Appropriations Committee where, along with hiring committee staff, he recommends discretionary spending strategies to the Democratic committee members and House leadership. Nabors also worked at OMB during the Clinton administration as the senior adviser to the director, as the assistant director for administration and as executive secretary.

"Rob will bring to this post experience in the executive branch, at the OMB, where he helped the Clinton administration achieve balanced budgets, as well as in the legislative branch, where he led the appropriations committee staff as a driving force for a responsible budget," Obama said.

The president-elect repeated his campaign pledge to go through the federal budget "page by page, line by line" to eliminate unnecessary programs while "insisting that those we do need operate in a sensible, cost-effective way."

He said he will be announcing other members of his economic team, such as the secretaries of the departments of Energy, Labor, Commerce and Health and Human Services, who will help design his administration's recovery program for the U.S. economy.

"I think it's important, given the uncertainty in the markets and given the very legitimate anxiety that the American people are feeling, that they know that their new president has a plan and is going to act swiftly and boldly," he said.

Source: U.S. Department of State