22 June 2010

Peter Orszag to Quit as WH Budget Director

Fall-Guy for the Spendthrift Progressives
Heading into Mid-terms?

 reports:
Peter Orszag will leave his job as the White House budget director in July, according to someone familiar with his plans, making him perhaps the first official to leave the Obama Cabinet and removing a major player from President Obama’s economic team.

Mr. Orszag, an economist who previously spent nearly two years as director of the Congressional Budget Office, somewhat reluctantly accepted Mr. Obama’s invitation to join the Cabinet after the 2008 election and never planned to stay more than two years...

In recent months, Peter Orszag, 41, espoused deficit reduction strategies in administration debates against those who pressed for more stimulus spending and tax cuts to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. He will leave before the bipartisan debt-reduction commission that Mr. Obama formed earlier this year — and which Mr. Orszag championed — is due to report its recommendations by Dec. 1.

For all of his recent attention to deficit reduction, Peter Orszag’s first job for Mr. Obama, even before they officially took office in January 2009, was to be an architect for greatly adding to a deficit then projected at $1.3 trillion for the fiscal year. He helped put together the $787 billion two-year stimulus package...