Tag Archives: OMB

political news

Lesson learned from this OMB director fight?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Neera Tanden’s nomination to become the next head of the Office of Management and Budget appears to be nearing an end.

She has zero Republican support and one key Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has announced his opposition to her becoming OMB director; in a 50-50 U.S. Senate, Manchin’s defection appears to be the deal-killer.

Shelby endorses Shalanda Young for OMB director should Biden pull Tanden’s nomination (msn.com)

To be candid, this fight gives me a mild case of apoplexy.

Republicans are mounting a laughable crusade in targeting Tanden’s Twitter rants as their reason for opposing her. As if GOP politicians haven’t said or done the same thing that she has done via that social medium. My personal concern about Tanden’s nomination is her lack of budget management experience.

Having noted the Twitter nonsense, there does appear to be a lesson in this tempest. It is that politicians ought to stay the hell off Twitter, particularly if they aspire to advance their political careers or standing. Tanden has developed a notorious reputation for saying some mighty cruel things via Twitter. But … haven’t her GOP critics said or done the same thing?

Fairness requires me to point out that other Democratic politicians have self-inflicted plenty wounds over Twitter.

As we have learned to many politicians’ dismay, you cannot ever un-say these things once they’re out there. They become inscribed instantly and indelibly in the public record, even after the author of these statements “deletes” the offending tweet.

Will any of the pols who argue that Tanden’s tweets are offensive take heed of the message? Oh, probably not. Still, it is a lesson worth heeding.

Uncategorized

Tanden’s budget cred is lacking

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The media and political operatives have focused on Office of Management and Budget director nominee Neera Tanden’s stormy tirades on Twitter while they debate whether the Senate should approve her nomination.

Progressives are giving her a pass for the mean tweets she has put out there; Republicans are simply appalled, aghast and offended that she would be so angry. Actually, the GOP’s faux sensitivity is laughable on its face, given that so many Republican senators were willing to look the other way when Donald Trump was savaging his political foes with some of the most petulant tweets one can imagine coming from a president of the United States.

They are missing what I believe is the essential point over Tanden’s nomination, which is that she isn’t qualified to run OMB.

Tanden is a fierce partisan. I don’t begrudge that part of her background, per se. She also lacks any serious experience managing the kind of agency President Biden has asked of her. She has worked for progressive think tanks. Tanden has worked as an unpaid adviserĀ  to political campaigns.

Her background is shallow. For the life of me I don’t understand what President Biden thinks what kind of experience she brings to the tough work of managing a massive federal budget.

I’ve enjoyed listening to her political commentary in recent years. She and I are on the same political page. She preaches to the proverbial choir when I listen to what she says. I just don’t know if she has the financial chops required to do the job President Biden is asking her to do.

Uncategorized

Start looking for new OMB boss, Mr. POTUS

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Neera Tanden’s status as the next director of the federal Office of Management and Budget suddenly has run into a serious roadblock.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has said he will oppose her nomination when he gets to vote on it. That means a 50-50 Senate composition puts Tanden’s nomination in serious jeopardy. All of the Senate’s 50 Republicans will oppose her selection; Democratic support stands at 49 votes maximum. Got it? She cannot be confirmed, if the numbers hold up.

To be honest, I was skeptical of her nomination from the get-go … and not because of her fiery Twitter messages that savaged Republican lawmakers. My concern always had been that she is light on budgeting experience. To be candid, I am not clear why President Biden chose her in the first place.

Politico reports: Two early contenders to replace Tanden are Gene Sperling, a two-time director of the National Economic Council, and Ann Oā€™Leary, who just came off a stint serving as California Gov. Gavin Newsomā€™s chief of staff, and who was considered a leading alternative to Tanden back in November when Tandenā€™s nomination was announced, according to people familiar with the matter.

The jockeying to replace Neera Tanden has begun – POLITICO

At one level it is laughable on its face that GOP senators would be angry because of her partisan Twitter messages, given that the 45th president of the United States used that social medium to inflict serious insult and damage to his foes.

Even without all of that, Tanden’s pick is suspect, given that she is a hard-core partisan and someone with little experience implementing budget policy on a scale required by the OMB director.

ā€œI believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget,ā€ Manchin, a moderate Democrat, said in a statement. ā€œFor this reason, I cannot support her nomination.”

Whatever. It looks to me as though her Twitter activity should be the least of the issues that work against her.

President Biden ought to start looking seriously for someone with actual budgetary chops to handle a daunting task.

economic news

GOP angry at OMB pick

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I feel the need to explain in some detail my concern about President-elect Biden’s decision to nominate Neera Tanden as the next director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Tanden’s selection has drawn fire from Republican U.S. senators. Why? Because she has said mean things about them on Twitter and other media outlets.

Their concern upsets my tummy. It’s not because Tanden shouldn’t have said those things about the Republican congressional caucus. I happen to agree with her. She runs a liberal think tank. Tanden is called upon often by media outlets to comment on this and/or that. She did so frequently during Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry.

What does trouble me is that President-elect Biden pledged an effort to unify the nation after four years of Trump and after a nasty and epithet- and threat-filled presidential campaign.

Neera Tanden is precisely the kind of nominee I would hope the president-elect would avoid. He didn’t do that. He has tapped a fierce partisan to take on what should be a job left to impartial, critical fiscal analysis.

To be clear, Donald Trump also selected a fierce partisan to run OMB when he selected former South Carolina U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, who then became “acting” White House chief of staff for most of the second half of Trump’s term as president.

President-elect Biden, though, pledged a different tone were he elected to the office. I am afraid Neera Tanden doesn’t meet that standard.

Do I care that she has spoken critically of the GOP? Not in the least. I do care that Joe Biden’s effort to calm the rough seas might be placed in jeopardy.

economic news

OMB pick draws fire

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Neera Tanden wants to become the next head of the Office of Management and Budget in the Joe Biden administration.

But wait a minute. She’s running into some serious headwinds from Senate Republicans. Why? Well, it seems that she has been highly critical of GOP policymakers and policies, and of course of Donald Trump, the guy Biden defeated to become the nation’s next president.

I’ll be candid. Biden’s decision to select Tanden does puzzle me. She has been a sharp-tongued pundit. I really don’t know about her budgetary experience. Not only that, the president-elect’s pledge to “unify” the country seems at odds with the selection of a sharp partisan, such as Neera Tanden.

She runs a progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress. Tanden could be seen and heard throughout the Biden-Trump campaign blasting Donald Trump to smithereens. To be blunt, I have no problem with what she said about Trump.

I do have a problem with an appointment such as hers and whether it is faithful to President-elect Biden’s pledge to heal the wounds that have divided us.

economic news

Just wondering: Who’s running the OMB?

I cannot stop thinking about the fellow who is serving as acting chief of staff at the White House.

Mick Mulvaney waltzed into the West Wing to take over as chief of staff after John Kelly was either (a) fired, (b) asked to quit or (c) resigned in a huff because he couldn’t control anything.

Donald Trump said Mulvaney would become “acting” chief of staff, which is strange on its face. Normally presidents wouldn’t have any difficulty finding a permanent COS. Mulvaney, though, already has a full-time job as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The OMB gig is a huge undertaking as it is.

Now he is running the White House per the president’s instruction.

Who, though, is running the OMB? Who is putting a pencil to the staggering deficit that is growing ominously, even though the president promised to bring the budget into balance — albeit over a serious length of time.

Does this mean, therefore, that we no longer have a permanent WH chief of staff and a director of the Office and Management and Budget? I keep wondering about who is minding the OMB store while the boss is at the White House trying to make sense of the chaos inside the West Wing.

national news

WH chief of staff gets a dose of Trump

Donald Trump selected Mick Mulvaney to be the acting White House chief of staff to succeed John Kelly, who resigned far ahead of his announced timetable.

Mulvaney, who runs the Office of Management and Budget in his real day job, said upon his hiring that he planned to “let Trump be Trump.” He had no intention, or so he implied, of reeling in the president while trying to prevent him from some of his more impulsive behavior.

Well, it’s being reported that Mulvaney got a serious dose of the real Donald Trump during a White House meeting with Democratic congressional leaders. The group met ostensibly to find a way to reopen the government, which has been shut down partially for three weeks.

Trump reportedly dressed Mulvaney down in front of those congressional leaders, telling him to “Stop, stop, just stop. What are you doing? You’re f***ing it all up, MIck.”

There you go. That’s Trump being Trump, per the White House chief of staff’s stated desire. Is this what he really intended when he took the job on an “acting” basis? I think not.

Don’t misconstrue me here. I don’t feel sorry for Mulvaney. He’s a grownup who likely knew about the loony bin into which he was entering when he agreed to run the White House staff.

Still, what I find astounding is that the president of the United States would (allegedly) treat the chief of staff in that fashion in front of a roomful of politicians and other staffers. Then again, given the president’s lack of decorum or dignity at any level, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at all!

The White House chief of staff once was considered the plum of plum jobs in D.C. No longer. Not for as long as Donald Trump is president of the United States. He’s already burned through two chiefs of staff, Kelly and before him Reince Priebus. Kelly was brought in to bring a sense of order after Priebus was canned; indeed, Priebus couldn’t control the traffic in the Oval Office, just inflaming the chaos that dictates the flow within the White House.

Now we have Mulvaney perched in the White House hot seat. I’ve thought all along that an “acting” chief of staff cannot sustain himself over any length of time. I mean, Mulvaney already has a full-time gig at OMB, which is a huge job all by itself.

So now he gets pounded and pilloried by the president while the government remains shut down.

Great work if you can get it, right, Mick?

national news

New WH chief of staff seeks to preserve his own sanity

I am going to hand it to Mick Mulvaney, the new “acting” White House chief of staff.

Whereas John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps four-star general, sought to bring a military-style discipline to the White House, Mulvaney isn’t even going to try that approach.

Politico reports that Mulvaney is going to let “Trump be Trump.”

There you go. Let Donald Trump run the White House the way he sees fit and hope against hope that it works out. Spoiler alert: It likely won’t.

However, Mulvaney — who once called Trump a “terrible human being” — will be able to maintain more than a semblance of his own sanity if he allows the president a relatively free rein in the West Wing of the White House.

Politico reports: Mulvaney will adopt a much larger role in politics and messaging, and plans to take a more laissez faire approach to some quirks of the Trump White House that irked Kelly — like non-essential staffers attending meetings, or the president frequently reaching out to longtime friends, Republican lawmakers and advisers for advice or dinners in the White House residence.

Is it a surprise, then, that Trump and Kelly have been barely speaking? Of course not.

I’m not sure what to make of the Mulvaney Doctrine in running the White House staff, except to believe that he’s basically going to cede day-to-day management to the Big Man himself.

I am wondering now whether Mulvaney is going to lobby the president for a permanent appointment in the White House. He now is ostensibly the head of the Office of Management and Budget. I presume he’ll hand OMB duties to someone else while he shows up for work in the White House.

Under normal circumstances, I would wish Mulvaney well as he embarks on a new challenge. These are far from normal times in the White House. The president is feeling the heat of multiple investigations bearing down on him. The White House staff reportedly is down in the dumps over the uncertainty and chaos.

I suppose the best I can hope for is that Mulvaney’s strategy at sanity preservation works for him.

national news

An ‘acting’ WH chief of staff? Really, Mr. POTUS?

Welcome to the federal government’s executive branch loony bin, Mick Mulvaney.

Donald Trump has just named the current director of the Office of Management and Budget as the “acting” White House chief of staff. Mulvaney ostensibly will serve as the White House ringmaster until the president can find a permanent chief of staff to succeed John Kelly, who’s leaving the post at the end of the month.

This is a seriously bizarre move on the president’s part.

The White House chief of staff is supposed to seize the reins of the executive staff of the president. The chief, according to those who know these things, is the president’s alter ego. He or she is supposed to know the president’s every move. He or she is supposed to have the president’s full backing. The president is supposed to simply let the chief of staff handle matters that the Big Man doesn’t have time to handle.

Mulvaney already has a full time job at OMB, which is a big enough job as it is. Now he gets to spend part of his time pretending to be the White House chief of staff working at the pleasure of a president who — as we’ve seen many times already — has this incurable penchant for second-guessing the chief at every turn.

How in the world is Mulvaney going to bring a semblance of stability to a White House that is operating in full chaos mode?

The executive branch of government becomes the product of the man elected to lead that arm of government. Americans have elected someone in the person of Donald Trump who has zero understanding of how government is supposed to work. He doesn’t know a thing about public service and has no inclination to learn anything about it.

Good luck, Mick Mulvaney. You are going to need every bit of it you can find.

business news, national news, political news

OMB boss-designate highlights Trump’s ideological conflict

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Do you need an example of the non-ideology that drives Donald J. Trump?

Here’s one. Take a look at who he has chosen to become director of the Office of Management and Budget … and then square that — if you can — with what Trump has proposed doing as president of the United States.

The OMB director-designate is Mick Mulvaney, a South Carolina member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Mulvaney is a fierce budget hawk, a founding member of the HouseĀ Freedom Caucus, a TEA Party golden boy.

Mulvaney fights spending measures whenever he can. He says Congress spends too much money. Government is too big, too hungry for taxpayers’ money.

He’s a conservative’s conservative.

What does Trump want to do? He wants to spend a trillion dollars to improve the nation’s highway, bridge and rail infrastructure.

How in the world is he going to do that? Where is he going to get the money? How will he get this past his budget director, the guy who hates government spending with a purple passion?

Well, Trump is going to be the president. Mulvaney will answer to him, not the other way around.

Still, this appointment speaks to the puzzle that is Donald Trump. He ran as a populist, then has named a large number of billionaires to his inner circle. He said he knows “more about ISIS than the generals,” then picks three general-grade officers to his national security team. He spoke of his desire to improve public education, then selects a known foe of public education as the nation’s education secretary.

Now we have Mick Mulvaney being nominated to run the White House budget office. Mulvaney is a fiscal skinflint who’s going to work for a president intent on spending lots of money while hoping to enact tax cuts that will favor the wealthiest of Americans.

Oh, wait! He’s a populist, too!

Go figure. Any of it!