U.S. News: Deficit Hawk Plays Against Type --- As Budget Director, Orszag Is Caught Between Spending and Debt Directives
Peter Orszag spent most of his professional career mapping out the dangers of budget deficits and devising such solutions as restructuring the tax code and revamping Social Security.</br></br>Now, as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget -- the nation's bean counter-in-chief -- he has found it's not easy being a deficit hawk in the Great Recession.</br></br>Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers believe moves to reduce the deficit would throttle recovery. Republican leaders refuse to consider higher taxes. Democrats who had championed fiscal responsibility fear spending cuts when unemployment stands at 10%.</br></br>Mr. Summers said spending on administration priorities would not be sacrificed to the deficit: "If we as a country are not successful in establishing job growth and economic growth soundly, we will not achieve any of our other objectives."</br></br>Mr. Orszag's dilemma will be seen Monday when the president unveils a 2011 federal budget that expresses concern about the widening deficit but offers only modest solutions to reduce it. The White House proposes freezing a small slice of domestic spending, and projects the deficit falling from a sum equal to 10% of U.S. gross domestic product to half that by 2013, according to officials briefed on the budget. That's still about $800 billion.