Budget Director Calls It Quits

Peter Orszag is resigning his Cabinet-level position and possibly heading to the relative calm of a think tank. Orszag decided to leave before work on the next budget starts in earnest. A successor is likely to be promoted from within the administration.

In these dire economic times, Orszag’s job was viewed as highly stressful, and his departure hasn’t met with much shock in the press.

Politico:

White House budget director Peter Orszag plans to leave government in July, becoming the first member of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet to depart, administration officials said Monday. Orszag is likely to join a think tank, colleagues said.

Presidential advisers say a possible successor as director of the Office of Management and Budget is Rob Nabors, who was Orszag’s deputy and went over to the Chief of Staff’s office to be a senior adviser to Rahm Emanuel. Nabors now he attends the 7:30 a.m. senior staff meeting and insiders say his stock never dropped, but only gained in value.

Two other possible replacements each served as chief economic adviser to President Bill Clinton: Laura D’Andrea Tyson of the University of California at Berkeley, named by Obama as a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board; and Gene Sperling, now a counselor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

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