The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) functions as the primary budget office for the Executive Branch of the federal government. OMB oversees the budgetary activities of various federal agencies for the White House and offers advice to senior White House officials on policy, management, legislation, regulatory, procurement, e-gov and budgetary functions. One of the largest tasks assigned to OMB is preparing the President’s annual budget request submitted to Congress, a document that runs into the thousands of pages. Over the last 30 years, OMB has sometimes found itself in the thick of political debates over balancing the federal budget. Its most famous director, David Stockman, became a high-profile figure (unlike most OMB officials) during the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan declared war on big government and attempted (unsuccessfully) to shrink the size of federal agencies.
In 1921 the Bureau of the Budget was established as part of the US Department of the Treasury, according to the Accounting Act. The Treasury Department continued overseeing the budget office until 1939, when the Executive Office of the President (EOP) was given authority over the bureau.
In 1970, during the Nixon Administration, the Bureau of the Budget was reorganized and renamed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In the 1990s, OMB was further reorganized to combine management and budgetary staff responsibilities under the heading of the various Resource Management Offices.
Historically, OMB and its predecessor have quietly gone about its work, leaving public debates over the state of the federal budget in the hands of the White House or Congress. The exception was David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s first director of OMB.
Stockman entered the White House a true believer in supply-side economics and was gung-ho about radically shrinking the size of government. His ambition to cut federal spending made him a poster child for Reaganomics and a much despised figure among liberals. Despite his zeal, Stockman failed to achieve significant budget cuts in federal spending, which, combined with Reagan’s tax cuts, caused massive budget deficits in the 1980s. A story in the Atlantic Monthly depicted Stockman as a brilliant young conservative idealist who gradually became disillusioned with the conservative movement’s grand theories about how the world worked. Stockman expressed his own disgust with the political process in his memoir, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed.
For some OMB directors, the position has proven to be a launching pad for bigger assignments in the federal government. Casper Weinberger and George Shultz both served as head of the budget office for Nixon, with Weinberger going on to serve as Secretary of Defense and Shultz as Secretary of State, both under Reagan. In the Clinton administration, Leon Panetta went from OMB to White House Chief of Staff, as did Joshua Bolten in the current administration of President George W. Bush.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a cabinet-level agency operating under the authority of the Executive Office of the President. The agency is responsible for administering the President’s annual budget request, issuing circulars on agency management practices and reviewing agency regulations.
Six positions within the OMB are nominated by the President and confirmed by the senate. These include the director, the deputy director, the deputy director for management, and the administrators of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the Office of Federal Financial Management.
OMB is divided into four Resource Management Offices (RMOs), each led by an OMB associate director. Program examiners within these RMOs are assigned to monitor one or more federal agencies or may be assigned a specific area, along with its management and budgetary issues. Examiners analyze trends and consequences of budget policy, provide strategic and technical support for budget decision-making and negotiations, and monitor Congressional action on spending legislation.
Each year, staff members review federal agency budget requests and help to decide what resource requests will be sent to Congress as part of the president’s budget. Using the Program Assessment Tool, staff members can also review proposed regulations, agency testimony, analyze pending legislation, and oversee all aspects of the President’s Management Agenda. Additionally, they are often called upon to provide information to the agency’s sub-offices, including the office of Federal Procurement Policy, the Office of Federal Financial Management, and the Office of E-Government.
Other OMB offices include the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Legislative Affairs, the Budget Review Division (BRD) and the Legislative Reference Division, which distributes proposed legislation and testimony to all relevant federal reviewers and writes an Enrolled Bill Memorandum to the President once a bill is presented on both sides of Congress. The Enrolled Bill Memorandum details the various elements of the bill, including opinions from relevant federal department and an overall opinion about whether the law should be signed or vetoed. The Legislative Reference Division also issues Statements of Administration Policy, which makes the White House’s official opinions known.
According to its FY 2009 budget request, the Office of Management and Budget will spend $78 million on administering the president’s annual budget request, as well as overseeing the activities of various federal agencies for the White House, and offering advice to senior White House officials on policy, management, legislation, regulatory, procurement, e-gov and budgetary functions. As such, all of its resources are spent on maintaining its internal operations, including administrative and support services, salaries, benefits and building fees.
OMB does not have any information regarding contracts on http://www.usaspending.gov/. However, the office does work with private contractors. In August of 2007, REI Systems announced that it had received a contract from SRA Touchstone, which supports the development of a pilot web site designed to support OMB’s Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. The site will make acquisition, grant and loan award data available to the general public, and REI Systems will assist with technical support and integration services.
WinMagic, a company supplying disk encryption services, announced in June 2007 that it had been selected to provide protection for sensitive, unclassified data on OMB laptops, other computing devices and removable storage media. The contract extended to the Department of Defense and General Services Administration and could result in contract values exceeding
$79 million
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US Army Plan to Add More Generals Shot Down by OMB
In June 2008, the Associated Press reported that the OMB had quashed a service plan proposed by the US Army to add five active-duty generals to oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance. This came about after a panel criticized the Army for contracting failures that undermined war efforts in Iraq an Afghanistan and wasted millions in tax dollars. The Army already has 300 full-time generals which the OMB has deemed more than enough to handle any new demands. The Army has appealed OMB’s decision.
White House Leaves Loophole for Foreign Contractors
In March 2008, the White House indicated that it will not remove a loophole inserted into a budget rule by OMB that allows foreign contractors to remain silent if they witness fraud or abuse on US government contracts. The Justice Department opposes the exemption and wrote to the OMB, asking for the exemption to be eliminated.
Government Outsourcing Raises Controversy
In December 2002, the Washington Post reported that President George W. Bush’s new e-government initiative (which is part of OMB) was raising controversy among librarians and public interest groups who are worried that the new law will make it harder and more costly for the public to find government documents and take advantage of existing federal services. Also at issue is a new plan to encourage competition and bids from printing and electronic archiving companies for jobs. Previously, the Government Printing Office (GPO) enjoyed a near-monopoly on these services. GPO maintains that these changes would cost taxpayers an additional $100-200 million every year. OMB e-Government Scorecard Lacks Essential Citizens’ Perspective, Says Report by ForeSee Results
(Business Wire)
Robert J. Portman (May 26, 2006-August 3, 2007)
Joshua B. Bolten (June 26, 2003-April 14, 2006)
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. (January 23, 2001-June 6, 2003)
Jacob J. Lew (May 21, 1998-January 19, 2001)
Franklin D. Raines (September 13, 1996-May 21, 1998)
Alice M. Rivlin (October 17, 1994-April 26, 1996)
Leon E. Panetta (January 21, 1993-October 1994)
Richard G. Darman (January 25, 1989-January 20, 1993)
Joseph R. Wright, Jr. (November 8, 1988-January 20, 1989)
James C. Miller III (October 8, 1985-October 15, 1988)
David A. Stockman (January 21, 1981-August 1, 1985)
James T. McIntyre, Jr. (September 24, 1977-January 20, 1981)
Thomas Bertram Lance (January 21, 1977-September 23, 1977
James T. Lynn (February 10, 1975-January 20, 1977)
Roy L. Ash (February 2, 1973-February 3, 1975)
Casper W. Weinberger (June 12, 1972-February 1, 1973)
George P. Shultz (July 1, 1970-June 11, 1972)
Robert P. Mayo (January 22, 1969-June 30, 1970)
Charles J. Zwick (January 29, 1968-January 21, 1969)
Charles L. Schultze (June 1, 1965-January 28, 1968)
Kermit Gordon (December 28, 1962-June 1, 1965)
David E. Bell (January 22, 1961-December 20, 1962)
Maurice H. Stans (March 18, 1958-January 21, 1961)
Percival F. Brundage (April 2, 1956-March 17, 1958)
Rowland R. Hughes (April 16, 1954-April 1, 1956)
Joseph M. Dodge (January 22, 1953-April 15, 1954)
Frederick J. Lawton (April 13, 1950-January 21, 1953)
Frank Pace (February 1, 1949-April 12, 1950)
James E. Webb (July 13, 1946-January 27, 1949)
Harold D. Smith (April 15, 1939-June 19, 1946)
Daniel W. Bell September 1, 1934-April 14, 1939
Lewis W. Douglas (March 7, 1933-August 31, 1934)
J. Clawson Roop August 15, 1929-March 3, 1933
Herbert M. Lord (July 1, 1922-May 31, 1929)
Charles E. Dawes (June 23, 1921-June 30, 1922)
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Founded: 1970
Annual Budget: $78 million
Employees: 500
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Office of Management and Budget
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Peter R. Orszag served as the seventh director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 18, 2007, until Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009, at which time Orszag took over as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Orszag graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1987 and summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1991. He received an MSc and a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
Orszag was research officer at the Centre for Economic Performance from 1992-1993, economic adviser for the Macroeconomic and Fiscal Unit of the Russian Ministry of Finance (1993), staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-1994, and a member of the professional research staff for the Centre for Economic Performance (London School of Economics) from 1994 to 1995.
He served as economist and then senior adviser to the President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1995-1996. He was senior economic adviser, and then Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy on the National Economic Council from 1997 to 1998.
From 1998-2000, Orszag was president of Sebago Associates, a policy consulting firm. During this time, he also worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Company in San Francisco in 1998, helping one of the nation’s largest HMOs on developing its budget, then as a lecturer at UC Berkeley from 1999 to 2000.
In 2001, Orszag became a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institute. There, he also worked as a Joseph A. Pechman Fellow in Tax and Fiscal Policy (2001-2007), co-director of the Tax Policy Center (2003-2007), and Deputy Director of Economic Studies (2006-2007). Concurrently, he served as director of the Retirement Security Project from 2004 to 2007 and was a research professor at Georgetown University and director of The Hamilton Project from 2005 to 2007.
On November 25, 2008, President-Elect Barack Obama announced that he had chosen Orszag to be director of the Office of Management and Budget.
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Nussle, Jim
Former Director
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A native of Iowa, Jim Nussle served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget from September 10, 2007, until the end of the presidency of George W. Bush. Nussle is of Danish descent and studied in Denmark during high school. He received a bachelor’s in international studies, political science and economics from Luther College in 1983 and a JD degree from Drake University in Des Moines in 1985. Upon his graduation, Nussle was elected the Delaware County attorney in Manchester, Iowa, taking on law enforcement and prosecution duties for the county.
Nussle ran for the House of Representatives seat vacated by Tom Tauke in 1990 and won. In 1992, Nussle ran again for the 2nd district of Iowa following reapportionment that combined two districts into one. He served as a Republican member of the House of Representatives from 1991 to 2007. Nussle became Chairman of the House Budget Committee in 2001 and brought international attention to his district through programs like the ONE Campaign, the lobbying group formed by Bono of the rock band U2. During his 16 years in the Congress, Nussle served on several key committees, including the Agriculture, Banking and Ways and Means Committees.
When Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack announced that he would not seek a third term in 2006, Nussle announced his intention to run for the position. Nussle won the Republican gubernatorial primary but lost the general election to Chet Culver in November 2006. Following the election, Nussle retired from Congress and started his own lobbying firm, where he worked until joining OMB.
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