Conservatives scored their first victory against the Biden administration when former Center for American Progress (CAP) President Neera Tanden’s nomination to direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was blocked. George Soros and his Open Society Institute is a primary funder of CAP.

Tanden declared twitter war on Republicans and progressives over the past three years. One target was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Sanders now heads the Senate Budget Committee, which hosted one of Tanden’s confirmation hearings. Another target was liberal Republican Susan Collins who said “Neera Tanden has neither the experience nor the temperament to lead this critical agency.” 

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“I feel badly that I said them. … I must have meant them,” Tanden said during her Senate confirmation hearing.

OMB prepares the president’s budget, oversees agency performances, procurement, financial management, and information technology, reviews of all significant federal regulations from executive agencies, privacy policy, information policy, and review and assessment of information collection requests and clearance and coordination of legislative and other materials, including agency testimony, legislative proposals, and other communications with Congress, and coordination of other executive actions.

The confirmation was hurt when moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he would not support her nomination. That left Democrats seeking a liberal Republican to sway in a 50-50 Senate. An inability to sway Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski was the final nail in the nominations coffin.

Who is next?

Shalanda Young’s nomination as deputy OMB director appeared before the Senate Budget Committee on the same day. Lindsey Graham expressed of Young for both the deputy slot and possibly director.

Progressives, not the Sanders-type, the internationalist-type, went on the warpath against Biden and nominee opponents.

Nearly 30 self-proclaimed influential internationalist progressive labor and women’s groups urged senators on Feb. 22 to support Tanden’s nomination, citing her work on the critical women’s issues at the core of the current economic crisis. These included leaders from the AFL-CIO, National Women’s Law Center, Time’s Up and New America.

Leading candidates to replace Tanden include Gene Sperling, a top economic adviser for former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and Bruce Reed, a more conservative Democrat who was reportedly beat out of consideration for the role by Tanden.

Sperling was Director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the President for Economic Policy under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Reed served as the president-elect’s deputy chief of staff, much to the outrage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk.