Will Biden Name a Deficit Hawk to Head OMB?

Yesterday, I reported that Bruce Reed, one of Biden’s top campaign advisers and his most conservative, has not yet been named to a White House job. As I wrote, he is an extreme deficit hawk.

I’ve since learned that Reed is being promoted to head the powerful Office of Management and Budget. That would be a match made in hell, given the need for extensive deficit spending.

With interest rates near zero and the Fed pumping up financial markets, the usual fiscal-hawk blather about needing to cut deficits to reassure the bond market is even more nonsensical than usual.

But I left one thing out of my story. There is a second very senior inner-circle Biden adviser not yet named to a job—Jeff Zients. And like Reed, Zients represents the conservative wing of the Biden crowd.

Zients is also a contender for OMB. He’s not quite as much of a deficit hawk as Reed, but even closer to Wall Street. Pick your poison.

But maybe we don’t have to. One other contender for the OMB post is Gene Sperling, formerly head of the National Economic Council under both Clinton and Obama.

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He’s not quite Biden inner-circle, but he did a lot of the good policy work for Biden’s campaign. Sperling is no lefty. But like a good wine, he’s become better with age. His 2020 book, Economic Dignity, is a serious piece of progressive work that reads like something you’d see in the Prospect.

Sperling is far from a deficit hawk. He has held all the top economic jobs under Clinton and Obama—except OMB. So this should be a natural.

Yet another contender is Brian Deese, who was deputy OMB director under Obama—and now works for BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company. He’s yet another Obama alum who went to the Wall Street–Washington revolving door.

But one other factor complicates this decision—diversity. All of these worthies are white guys, as are the several other top Biden White House staffers previously announced. So Biden will need to balance remaining White House senior appointments with his commitment to have a diverse administration.

One other name has been prominently mentioned for OMB director: Ann O’ Leary, currently chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. She is well known to the Biden crowd, having formerly been legislative director for Hillary Clinton.

O’Leary, at least, is female. Likewise Heather Boushey, who heads the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Both are far from deficit hawks.

Boushey will get a major job in the Biden administration, and has been tipped as either chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, or the more powerful position as director of the National Economic Council. She could also do the OMB job.

Diversity to the rescue? I have not been able to learn of any African Americans under consideration for OMB.

One who could do the job is Bill Spriggs, who is a contender for labor secretary. He has been chair of the economics department at Howard, currently serves as chief economist for the AFL-CIO, and was assistant secretary of labor under Bob Reich (and serves on the Prospect board).