WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will endure its first major turnover at some point later this summer as budget director Peter Orszag prepares to depart.
Orszag’s departure has been rumored since early this year, so there is no shortage of contenders to succeed him in that ornate office suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Here’s an early look at potential candidates for the head of Office of Management and Budget, ranked from conventional/safe picks to more daring choices:
• Gene Sperling: Currently a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he was a top economic official during Bill Clinton’s presidency and lead economic adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. Certainly has the political chops and knows how to run the budget show, but does he want a more senior economic role if, say, Geithner or Larry Summers were to leave soon?
• Laura Tyson: She chaired Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, currently teaches at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, served as dean at the London Business School and has worked with the Brookings Institution, the New America Foundation, the Peter G. Peterson Institute and Center for American Progress. She earned some corporate cash on the boards of AT&T, Eastman Kodak and Morgan Stanley and specializes in global management and U.S. trade policy. Having another woman in a high-profile role wouldn’t hurt the Obama administration, either.
• Rob Nabors: The son of an Army major general served as Orszag’s deputy before joining Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s office to focus on special projects. He previously served as staff director for House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, D-Wis.
• Robert Greenstein: He’s the director of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and ran the school-lunch and food-stamp programs during the Carter administration. Also served on the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform during the Clinton administration and led the Obama-Biden federal budget policy transition team. He’s considered a safe Washington establishment/outsider choice.
• Byron Dorgan: Would North Dakota’s retiring Democratic senator want to stay in Washington and adapt his political savvy to the Obama administration’s budget?
• Jeffrey Liebman: He’s an economist with expertise on poverty, pensions and Social Security. He led the Obama-Biden OMB transition team, advised then-candidate Obama on Social Security and previously coordinated Social Security policy proposals for the Clinton administration. Despite his deep knowledge of economics and OMB, administration officials say, he lacks the political chops to run the budget shop.
• Jeffrey Zients: Perhaps the most unconventional of these picks. Obama’s second choice as chief performance officer has spent the last 18 months using his private-sector management experience to find ways to slash waste and redundancies across the government. He orchestrated high-profile cost-savings announcements in recent months, including planned federal hiring reforms and plans to cut $8 billion in federal building costs.
