Obama nominates Wal-Mart's Burwell as budget chief
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has tapped Wal-Mart's Sylvia Mathews Burwell as his next budget chief, thrusting her into the center of Washington's heated partisan budget battles and is filling vacancies at the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency, an official says.
A White House official said Obama will announce Burwell's nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget during a White House ceremony Monday morning, a White House official said. If confirmed by the Senate, Burwell would bring more diversity to Obama's second term Cabinet following criticism that many top jobs were going to white men.
Her nomination also signals that the White House is trying to get back to normal business after the president and Congress failed to avert the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that started taking effect Friday. While the president has warned of dire consequences for the economy as a result of the cuts, the White House does not want the standoff with Congress to keep the president from focusing on other second term priorities, including filling out his Cabinet, as well as pursuing stricter gun laws and an overhaul of the nation's immigration system.
Obama also was set to announce his choice of MIT scientist Ernest Moniz to head the Energy Department and EPA veteran Gina McCarthy to run the EPA, said an official, who commented only on grounds anonymity in order to confirm the nominations ahead of Obama's formal announcement. The positions will require Senate confirmation.
Burwell is a Washington veteran, having served as OMB's deputy director in the Clinton administration and chief of staff to former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. She currently runs the Wal-Mart Foundation, the retail giant's philanthropic wing, and previously served as president of the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program.
The White House official credited Burwell with being a principal architect of a series of budget plans in the 1990s that led to a budget surplus.
Wal-Mart president Mike Duke called Burwell a strong leader with a "clear vision for making big things happen."
"She understands business and the role that business, government and civil society must play to build a strong economy that provides opportunity and strengthens communities across the country," Duke said in a statement.
Obama made quick work of filling key national security openings in his administration, but has been slower to fill other Cabinet-level openings, including the OMB post. Vacancies also remain at the Environmental Protection Agency, Commerce and Energy Departments, and the U.S. trade representative.
Administration officials have blamed the slow pace of nominations on the arduous Senate confirmation process, which requires job candidate to submit to an intense and lengthy vetting process.
Burwell would replace acting OMB director Jeffrey Zients, who has been discussed as a contender for other top jobs.
A White House official said Obama will announce Burwell's nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget during a White House ceremony Monday morning, a White House official said. If confirmed by the Senate, Burwell would bring more diversity to Obama's second term Cabinet following criticism that many top jobs were going to white men.
Her nomination also signals that the White House is trying to get back to normal business after the president and Congress failed to avert the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that started taking effect Friday. While the president has warned of dire consequences for the economy as a result of the cuts, the White House does not want the standoff with Congress to keep the president from focusing on other second term priorities, including filling out his Cabinet, as well as pursuing stricter gun laws and an overhaul of the nation's immigration system.
Obama also was set to announce his choice of MIT scientist Ernest Moniz to head the Energy Department and EPA veteran Gina McCarthy to run the EPA, said an official, who commented only on grounds anonymity in order to confirm the nominations ahead of Obama's formal announcement. The positions will require Senate confirmation.
Burwell is a Washington veteran, having served as OMB's deputy director in the Clinton administration and chief of staff to former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. She currently runs the Wal-Mart Foundation, the retail giant's philanthropic wing, and previously served as president of the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program.
The White House official credited Burwell with being a principal architect of a series of budget plans in the 1990s that led to a budget surplus.
Wal-Mart president Mike Duke called Burwell a strong leader with a "clear vision for making big things happen."
"She understands business and the role that business, government and civil society must play to build a strong economy that provides opportunity and strengthens communities across the country," Duke said in a statement.
Obama made quick work of filling key national security openings in his administration, but has been slower to fill other Cabinet-level openings, including the OMB post. Vacancies also remain at the Environmental Protection Agency, Commerce and Energy Departments, and the U.S. trade representative.
Administration officials have blamed the slow pace of nominations on the arduous Senate confirmation process, which requires job candidate to submit to an intense and lengthy vetting process.
Burwell would replace acting OMB director Jeffrey Zients, who has been discussed as a contender for other top jobs.
"The People Of Wal-Mart" now includes the whitehouse, Â
Why does this not suprise me...
As for Ronald McDonald...... oh never mind...
@EASTSIDE 1 Ronald? Didnt he do two terms in the '80s?
Well if anyone knows how to cut corners it's Wal-Mart..
@BoscoBaracus Those weren't corners, those were throats. I look forward to a new era of US working families being represented.
*Yawn*
Wake me up when somebody actually gets serious about dealing with the budget and spending problems.
@acepaul Time to wake up Paul. Our deficit is falling faster than in any period since right after WWII.Â
@lakeview You need to lend me those rose colored glasses. Or perhaps show me the technique for burying ones head in the sand.Â
Do you really believe that our country is being fiscally responsible? Can anyone be so blind?
You show me the projections for 5, 10, 20 years down the road that actually show we will cut spending enough to buy back our debt. Show me how we will sustain the increasing costs of established social programs that are being buried by more new social programs. And show me a federal program that costs nothing. Promises of new programs at no cost are motivational fodder for ignorant, blind, or downright stupid voters.
@T_BONE_WALKER A very well thought out response, and I agree with some of it. What I do not agree with is your version of the cure. We will not spend our way into prosperity with the government borrowing more money to create a false economy. You will simply have a higher level of spending that will be that much harder to get rid of.
Then the politics will get ugly as every lobbyist and local politician tries to get their share of the pie. The American people will be duped into thinking this is the status quo every time an election comes around. There won't be any political will to make the tough changes necessary to reduce debt.
No, your proposal is a disaster in the making for this great country that has lost its ability to exercise fiscal self control. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be until Greece becomes the model. Unfortunately, with the media tied into more liberal views coupled with people's reliance (legitimate and not) on government programs, it will be difficult to convince the majority of voters that we need to make common sense changes to our spending habits.
@acepaulGreece has demonstrated 3 different times, that trying to reduce the ratio of debt to GDP by austerity measures doesnât work. They tried a little austerity and it failed so, they tried a little more and it failed, now they went hog wild and destroyed every thing.
The only difference between the US and Greece is, we are worse off but, we have the world's reserve currency and it is in demand for global trade or, at least thats what it was doing now, more and more countries are dealing direct with their own currencies then ours.
Our problem is the lack of a tax base due to unemployment, and a lack of demand (wages) by people to support a consumer based economy.
We need jobs created and that is only going to happen if we have massive government spending on projects that put millions to work. Then we will have a tax base to deal with any deficit.Â
Once we get our consumer based economy rebuilt and have jobs unfilled, we can then weed out the folks that have been on welfare and abusing the benefit for generations and into those jobs.
So far none of this is doable because the corporations that run our government are still able to import labor, have that labor trained by US workers, and then lay off the US worker after the imported labor is trained or, they simply offshore.
Today the stock market is at record highs not from profits from expanding sales revenues, but from labor cost savings. US economic policy has been focused away from the real problems and onto a consequence of those problemsâthe large US budget deficit.Â
Unfortunately, out of the 6 industries that control our congress, one or more of those industries will have negatively impacted and thus, Congress has been unable to deal with the trillion dollar plus annual budget deficit as they should because so much rides on all those corporate campaign contributions, the continuation of which raises the specter of dollar collapse and inflation.