 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Politics: W. House Economist Tapped to Head Budget Office">Archive of stories pre April 2007 | | | | | | | 
Archive of stories pre April 2007 | News submitted by: MIB
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans said on Thursday they had tapped White House economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin to be the new director of the Congressional Budget Office, a post that is expected to wield considerable influence in coming debates over tax cuts and federal deficits.
In a move that drew immediate objections from Democrats, Holtz-Eakin -- the chief economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers -- was picked from a short-list of three candidates for the job of Congress' chief budget umpire.
The process of finding a new director for the CBO, set up in the mid-1970s to provide U.S. lawmakers with independent, unbiased budget and economic forecasts, is often contentious.
Conservatives had called this year for the Republican-led Congress to pick someone who would back changing the agency's estimates to shrink the fiscal impact of new tax cuts. And Democrats had complained of being shut out of a search they said could endanger the agency's nonpartisan mission.
By convention, the choice fell this year to House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican.
His recommendation -- which was backed by incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles of Oklahoma -- will now need to be approved by House Speaker Dennis Hastert and the Senate's senior Republican, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
"I am pleased to recommend Dr. Holtz-Eakin as the next CBO director," Nussle said. "He would bring a wealth of economic experience and public service to this position."
Holtz-Eakin received his B.A. from Ohio's Denison University in 1980 and his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton in 1985. He taught at Princeton, Columbia University and Syracuse University, where he chaired the department of economics.
DEMOCRATS WARY
While praising Holtz-Eakin's professional reputation, congressional Democrats said it would be a mistake to appoint a CBO head fresh from the White House's own economic team.
North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said Holtz-Eakin's background "would raise serious questions about the independence and nonpartisanship of CBO under his leadership."
But former CBO Director Robert Reischauer, a Democratic appointee who now heads the Urban Institute think tank, said Holtz-Eakin's credentials for the CBO post were solid.
"I'm greatly relieved," he said. "I think there was concern that the selection might be an individual who was less an objective analyst than a political ideologue."
Conservatives became disenchanted with former CBO Director Dan Crippen, himself a Republican, over his refusal to embrace the concept of "dynamic scoring" in the agency's estimates to reflect the faster economic growth, and hence higher government revenues in the long run, they say will flow from tax cuts.
That would help reduce the estimated budgetary impact of new tax cuts, like the $674 billion stimulus package President Bush unveiled on Tuesday, making them easier to sell politically at a time of rapidly swelling federal deficits.
Conrad said he was concerned that Holtz-Eakin has "expressed general support" for dynamic scoring, but budget analysts said his views on the issue were not clear.
Also considered for the top job at the CBO were the agency's acting director, Barry Anderson, and Urban Institute economist Eugene Steuerle, congressional aides said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2020799
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