Nomination Hearing for Biden Cabinet Pick Neera Tanden on 9 Feb

If confirmed by the Senate, Tanden would be the first woman of colour to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

Neera Tanden, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Neera Tanden)

Indian American political consultant Neera Tanden will have her confirmation hearing on 9 February announced a Senate panel on Tuesday, 2 February, reported PTI. Tanden was nominated as the Director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by US President Joe Biden.

The democrat’s nomination hearing is set to be controversial, as Republican senators allege she deleted over 1,000 tweets criticising them before her confirmation by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, reported PTI.

If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first woman of colour to lead the OMB, which acts as the gatekeeper for the federal budget worth $4 trillion, overseeing the president’s policy, budget, management and regulatory objectives.

Presently the Chief Executive of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, and a long-time aide to former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Tanden’s nomination could well fit into Biden’s attempts at stitching together a team of liberal and Centrist economic advisers.

BACKGROUND

Tanden was born on 10 September 1970, in Bedford, Massachusetts, to immigrant parents from India. She has an elder brother Raj. Tanden pursued a bachelor of science degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a law degree at the Ivy League Yale Law School.

“The position at OMB is a wide-ranging role with broad powers to manage trillions of dollars of the US budget. If anyone had any doubts that our community has arrived politically, this election cycle is proof enough," Indiaspora founder MR Rangaswami, and an eminent philanthropist and venture capitalist told news agency PTI.