November 30, 2020 9:25:02 pm
Tanden is a former assistant to Hillary Clinton and worked with her during Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 2008. (Photo: AP)
US President-elect Joe Biden is expected to appoint Neera Tanden, of Indian descent, as his budget chief. Tanden is the president and CEO of the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), and CEO of the American Progress Action Fund.
Under the Trump administration, the position of budget chief is held by Russell Vought, who previously served as deputy director and interim director before being confirmed as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in July this year.
Position of the ‘budget manager’
Biden is likely to nominate Tanden, who is a former assistant to Hillary Clinton and worked with her during Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 2008, as Director of the OMB, who will be responsible for managing the Biden administration’s budget.
According to the Wall Street Journal, his nomination is part of the Biden administration’s plan to build a team of liberal and centrist economic advisers.
On her Twitter profile, Tanden describes herself as “President of @amprog-Center for American Progress, Liberal, American Indian, Feminist, Mom, Wife. Not in that order. “
In a 2012 interview he gave to C-Span, Tanden said that when he was studying at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he began to get involved in student government and ran for his first and only elected office, to UCLA student body vice president, who won.
The first campaign she worked on was that of Michael Dukakis, who failed to run for president in 1988. In the interview, Tanden mentioned that when she was 11, she became a “very active supporter of Ronald Raegan.”
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She added: “I was like my parents, my mother has always been a Democrat and I was, you know, I was having great arguments with her. I was a huge Reagan supporter for two or three years and then basically changed in high school. I think you know that as I became more interested in women’s issues, I was pro-choice when I moved to college and you know I was clearly a Democrat when I got to the first semester and started volunteering for Mike Dukakis. “
Tanden’s parents divorced when she was five years old and she was raised by a single mother who received welfare for more than two years thereafter. Tanden has previously said that he is a living example of someone who has been helped by government schemes like food stamps, free and reduced lunches, and subsidized housing.
So what will Tanden’s responsibilities be as head of budget?
As head of OMB, Tanden will be responsible for the development and execution of the budget, the management of regulatory policy, legislative authorization and coordination, and the handling of executive orders and presidential memoranda.
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There are positions within the OMB that are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Positions include the director, deputy director, deputy director of management, and administrators of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, and the Office of Federal Financial Management.
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