President-elect Joe Biden is standing by his embattled pick to run the Office of Management and Budget.
Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, has upset both far-Left Democrats and Republicans over her more centrist approach to fiscal policy and the acerbic tone she’s adopted on social media toward the GOP.
On Tuesday, Biden played up Tanden’s humble beginnings. Tanden was raised by a single, Indian immigrant mother on food stamps in Massachusetts.
She “understands the struggles that millions of Americans are facing. And she will be the first woman of color and first South Asian American to lead OMB,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, during an event introducing his economic advisers.
In response, Tanden said she owed her success to “social programs,” “budgetary choices,” and “a government that saw my mother’s dignity and gave her a chance.”
Biden described his economic nominee designates as “tested,” saying Tanden, in particular, was “a brilliant policy mind with critical, practical experience across government.” The two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator called on the Senate to afford all his choices “a prompt hearing” and implored his former colleagues to work together more broadly on economic issues.
Negotiations between the outgoing Trump administration, the House, and the Senate over COVID-19 economic relief started again on Tuesday.
Not specifically addressing the proposals, Biden urged lawmakers to pass a “robust” package. But, he added any agreement struck during the lame-duck session would likely be “just a start,” voicing his support for job leave, rent, and student loan aid.
“My transition team is already working on what I’ll put forward in the next Congress,” he said.
During the event, Biden also joked to former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, his prospective Treasury secretary nominee, that he wanted to convince performer and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote Hamilton, “to write another musical about the first woman secretary of the treasury, ‘Yellen.’”
