Joe Biden – Joe Biden to appoint Janet Yellen, spotlight variety on economics workforce

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden on Monday introduced his senior financial workforce, together with his plans to appoint the primary lady to go the Treasury Division in addition to a number of liberal economists and coverage specialists who established their credentials through the earlier two Democratic administrations.

In an announcement, Biden mentioned he would nominate Janet Yellen, the previous Federal Reserve chair, to steer the Treasury Division, and former Clinton and Obama adviser Neera Tanden to function director of the Workplace of Administration and Funds. He additionally named Wally Adeyemo, a former Obama administration official and the primary CEO of the previous president’s nonprofit basis, as his nominee for deputy treasury secretary. He additionally unveiled his White Home financial workforce, consisting of economists Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey.

Biden, who has positioned a premium on variety in his choice of Cupboard nominees and key advisers, is trying to notch a number of firsts along with his financial workforce choices. Yellen can be the primary lady to steer the Treasury Division and Adeyemo the primary Black deputy secretary. Tanden can be the primary lady of colour to steer OMB and Rouse the primary lady of colour to chair the Council of Financial Advisers.

“As we get to work to regulate the virus, that is the workforce that may ship speedy financial aid for the American individuals throughout this financial disaster and assist us construct our economic system again higher than ever,” Biden mentioned in an announcement.

Yellen grew to become Federal Reserve chair in 2014 when the economic system was nonetheless recovering from the devastating Nice Recession. Within the late 1990s, she was President Invoice Clinton’s high financial adviser through the Asian monetary disaster. Below Biden she would lead the Treasury Division with the economic system within the grip of a surging pandemic.

If confirmed, Yellen would turn out to be the primary lady to steer the Treasury Division in its practically 232-year historical past. She would inherit an economic system with still-high unemployment, escalating threats to small companies and indicators that buyers are retrenching because the pandemic restricts or discourages spending.

Tanden, the president and CEO of the liberal suppose tank Middle for American Progress, has been tapped to function the director of the Workplace of Administration and Funds. She was the director of home coverage for the Obama-Biden presidential marketing campaign, however she first made her mark within the Clinton orbit.

She served as coverage director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential marketing campaign. Earlier than that, she served as legislative director in Clinton’s Senate workplace and deputy marketing campaign supervisor and points director for Clinton’s 2000 Senate marketing campaign. Tanden was a senior coverage adviser within the Invoice Clinton administration.

If confirmed, she can be the primary lady of colour and the primary South Asian lady to steer the OMB, the company that oversees the federal funds.

However Senate Republicans are signaling they’re going to oppose affirmation. Late Sunday a spokesman for GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas tweeted that Tanden “stands zero probability of being confirmed.” And Josh Holmes, a political adviser to Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell, tweeted that affirmation was seemingly doomed. Republicans maintain the sting within the present Senate, though subsequent yr’s majority will not be determined till Jan. 5 runoffs in two races involving GOP incumbents in Georgia.

Brian Deese, a former senior financial adviser within the Obama administration and now the managing director and international head of sustainable investing at BlackRock, is predicted to be named director of the White Home Nationwide Financial Council, in accordance with an individual conversant in transition plans who was not approved to talk on the matter.

Deese labored on the auto bailout and environmental points within the Obama White Home, the place he held the title of deputy director of each the NEC and the OMB

Cecilia Rouse, a labor economist and head of Princeton College’s Faculty of Public and Worldwide Affairs, is Biden‘s decide to function chairwoman of the Council of Financial Advisers. She served on the CEA from 2009 to 2011, and served on the NEC from 1998 to 1999 within the Clinton administration.

Notably, she organized a letter earlier this yr signed by greater than 100 economists calling for extra authorities motion to mitigate the fallout for People attributable to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rouse, who’s Black, can be the primary lady of colour to chair the CEA.

Biden additionally named Heather Boushey, the president and CEO of the Washington Middle for Equitable Progress, and Jared Bernstein, who served as an financial adviser to Biden through the Obama administration, to serve on the council. Each Boushey and Bernstein suggested Biden through the presidential marketing campaign.

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Related Press writers Alexandra Jaffe, Christopher Rugaber and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.