OMB

Washington is a place where it's both important to know someone in power and to be seen as knowing someone who is rumored to be in line to be in power. It's not at all surprising, therefore, that, with the White House's announcement earlier this week that Jack Lew will become the administration's next chief of staff, there's been lots of very public speculation about who will replace him as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Several thoughts:

First, in general it's going to be difficult for any presidential nominee for anything to get confirmed this year. Why would the White House want to undertake a series of bruising confirmation fights in Senate committees and on the Senate floor that, because of GOP filibusters, are highly unlikely to result in anyone actually getting confirmed.

Second, it's also not clear who currently outside government is going to want to put his or her life on hold to go through the very painful vetting process and even more painful confirmation process for a job that may not exist after noon on Inauguration Day.

 The White House announced about two hours ago that OMB Director Jack Lew has been named the new chief of staff, replacing William Daley.

Lew is a good choice for COS. He gets not just good but great marks for his management skills and, given what he's been through at OMB, obviously knows how to deal with pressure situations. 

But his leaving OMB now puts that agency in a bind because, unless something happened late last year that I didn't hear about, the deputy director for budget -- Rob Nabors -- hasn't been confirmed yet by the Senate. That likely means that Jeff Zients, the deputy for management, is the only one at OMB who legally can be acting director.

I would not be at all surprised if National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling gets nominated to replace Lew at OMB. Gene was mentioned prominently the last time the job was open as a possible replacement for then-OMB Director Peter Orszag (Full disclosure: My name was also among those listed in the news reports) and it's hardly a secret that he lusts after the job.

(originally posted on The Will and the Wallet

For thirty-five years, the Egyptian people believed the myth and lived in fear, fear of the security forces and fear of the chaos and instability that might exist without a strong ruler.  They have just overcome that fear and created hope.   That collective psychic shift was the key to making the change they needed to bring about.

As Ed noted, my name was being mentioned as a possible OMB director.  Because of that, I stopped posting at CG&G and suspended my column at Roll Call.  That's now over and I'm happy to be back.

But I'm not the story here: Jack Lew is, and he's a terrific choice to succeed Peter Orszag at OMB.

I have no idea whether, had Peter stayed through the end of the year, Jack would have been the White House's pick.  But once Peter announced that he was leaving this month, the administration had a timing problem that Jack, more than any other candidate, helped them solve.

Bruce...Summers may be leaving NEC (although I doubt it will happen anytime soon), but he's not going to be replaced by Peter Orzag. 

The reason? Orzag leaving the Office of Management and Budget would mean that there would be a confirmation hearing for the new director-designate at which on the Obama budget policies would be on trial.  Even if the White House appointed someone from outside the administration who had nothing to do with the Obama 2009 and 2010 budgets, he or she would repeatedly be asked about the deficits of the past two years and the floor debate would be more about the national debt than his or her qualifications.  It's not hard to imagine a situation where GOP members filibustered the floor vote or put a hold on the nomination just to extend the debate.

And make no mistake about it, the White House hasn't wanted to talk about the budget since it released the president's proposal in February.

Could the White House move Orzag to NEC and then avoid the confirmation fight by waiting until after the election to name a replacement and having the deputy fill in as acti