Office of Management and Budget

Office of Management and Budget
Agency overview
Formed	1970
Preceding agency	Bureau of the Budget;
Headquarters	Old Executive Office Building
Employees	500
Annual budget	$70.9 million (2008)
Agency executives	Jim Nussle, Director; Stephen S. McMillin, Deputy Director;
Parent agency	Executive Office of the President of the United States
Website	www.whitehouse.gov/omb

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a Cabinet-level office, and is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). It is an important conduit by which the White House oversees the activities of federal agencies. OMB is tasked with giving expert advice to senior White House officials on a range of topics relating to federal policy, management, legislative, regulatory, and budgetary issues. The bulk of OMB's 500 employees are charged with monitoring the adherence of their assigned federal programs to presidential policies. OMB performs its coordination role by gathering, filtering, and promulgating the President's annual budget request, by issuing circulars dictating agency management practices, by overseeing the "President's Management Agenda",[1] and by reviewing agency regulations. The Office contains significant numbers of both career and politically appointed staff; OMB staff provide important continuity within the EOP since several hundred career professionals remain in their positions regardless of which party occupies the White House. Six positions within OMB — 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 — are presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed positions.

Jim Nussle was confirmed as Director of OMB on September 4, 2007, replacing Rob Portman. Karen S. Evans, administrator of the OMB Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, serves as the de facto chief information officer for the United States.^[1]

Structure of OMB

The largest component of the Office of Management and Budget are the four Resource Management Offices which are organized along functional lines mirroring the U.S. federal government, each led by an OMB associate director. Approximately half of all OMB staff are assigned to these offices, the majority of whom are designated as program examiners. Program examiners can be assigned to monitor one or more federal agencies or may be assigned a topical area, such as monitoring issues relating to U.S. Navy warships. These staff have dual responsibility for both management and budgetary issues, as well as responsibility for giving expert advice on all aspects relating to their programs. Each year they review federal agency budget requests and help decide what resource requests will be sent to Congress as part of the president’s budget. They perform in-depth program evaluations using the Program Assessment Rating Tool,[2] review proposed regulations, agency testimony, analyze pending legislation, and oversee the aspects of the President's Management Agenda including agency management scorecards. They are often called upon to provide analysis information to any EOP staff member. They also provide important information to those assigned to the statutory offices within OMB, which are Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the Office of Federal Financial Management, and the Office of E-Government whose job it is to specialize in issues such as federal regulations or procurement policy and law.

Other offices are OMB-wide support offices which include the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Legislative Affairs, the Budget Review Division (BRD), and the Legislative Reference Division. BRD performs government-wide budget coordination and is largely responsibly for the technical aspects relating to the release of the president’s budget each February. With respect to the estimation of spending for the executive branch, BRD serves a purpose parallel to that of the Congressional Budget Office for the estimation of spending for Congress, the Department of the Treasury for the estimation of revenues for the executive branch, and the Joint Committee on Taxation for the estimation of revenues for Congress.

The Legislative Reference Division has the important role of being the central clearinghouse across the federal government for proposed legislation or testimony by federal officials. It distributes proposed legislation and testimony to all relevant federal reviewers and distills the comments into a consensus opinion of the Administration about the proposal. They are also responsible for writing an Enrolled Bill Memorandum to the president once a bill is presented by both bodies of Congress for the president’s signature. The Enrolled Bill Memorandum details the particulars of the bill, opinions on the bill from relevant federal departments, and an overall opinion about whether the bill should be signed into law or vetoed. They also issues Statements of Administration Policy that let Congress know the White House’s official position on proposed legislation.

History

The Bureau of the Budget, OMB's predecessor, was established as a part of the Department of the Treasury by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. The Bureau of the Budget was moved to the EOP in 1939, and reorganized into OMB in 1970 during the Nixon administration. The first OMB included Roy Ash (head), Paul O'Neill (assistant director), Fred Malek (deputy director) and Frank Zarb (associate director) and two dozen others. In the 1990s, OMB was reorganized to remove the distinction between management staff and budgetary staff by combining those dual roles into each given program examiner within the Resource Management Offices.[3]

Directors of the Office of Management and Budget

Name	Dates Served ↓	President	Notes
Jim Nussle	September 4, 2007 - present	George W. Bush
Rob Portman	May 26, 2006 - 19 June 2007	George W. Bush
Joshua B. Bolten	June 26, 2003 - April 15, 2006	George W. Bush	Bolten was designated on March 28, 2006, to replace Andy Card as White House Chief of Staff
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.	January 23, 2001 - June 6, 2003	George W. Bush	Daniels left and successfully ran for governor of Indiana
Jacob J. Lew	May 21, 1998 - January 19, 2001	Bill Clinton	Jack Lew served as deputy director of OMB from 1995 to 1998
Franklin D. Raines	September 13, 1996 - May 21, 1998	Bill Clinton	Raines went on to be CEO of Fannie Mae
Alice M. Rivlin	October 17, 1994 - April 26, 1996	Bill Clinton	Rivlin became a governor of the Federal Reserve after leaving OMB
Leon Panetta	January 21, 1993 - October 1994	Bill Clinton	Panetta went on to become President Clinton's chief of staff
Richard Darman	January 25, 1989 - January 20, 1993	George H. W. Bush
Joseph R. Wright, Jr.	October 16, 1988 - January 20, 1989	Ronald Reagan
James C. Miller III	October 8, 1985 - October 15, 1988	Ronald Reagan
David A. Stockman	January 21, 1981 - August 1, 1985	Ronald Reagan
James T. McIntyre	September 24, 1977 - January 20, 1981	Jimmy Carter
Bert Lance	January 21, 1977 - September 23, 1977	Jimmy Carter	Lance resigned amid a corruption scandal
James T. Lynn	February 10, 1975 - January 20, 1977	Gerald Ford	Lynn left to head Aetna Insurance
Roy Ash	February 2, 1973 - February 3, 1975	Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford
Caspar Weinberger	June 12, 1972 - February 1, 1973	Richard Nixon	Weinberger later served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and as Secretary of Defense under President Reagan
George P. Shultz	July 1, 1970 - June 11, 1972	Richard Nixon	Shultz had previously served President Nixon as Secretary of Labor and would later serve under him as Secretary of the Treasury and under Ronald Reagan as Secretary of State.
Robert Mayo	January 22, 1969 - June 30, 1970	Richard Nixon
Charles Zwick	January 29, 1968 - January 21, 1969	Lyndon B. Johnson
Charles Schultze	June 1, 1965 - January 28, 1968	Lyndon B. Johnson
Kermit Gordon	December 28, 1962 - June 1, 1965	John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson
David E. Bell	January 22, 1961 - December 20, 1962	John F. Kennedy
Maurice H. Stans	March 18, 1958 - January 21, 1961	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Percival Brundage	April 2, 1956 - March 17, 1958	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Rowland Hughes	April 16, 1954 - April 1, 1956	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Joseph Dodge	January 22, 1953 - April 15, 1954	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Frederick Lawton	April 13, 1950 - January 21, 1953	Harry S. Truman
Frank Pace	February 1, 1949 - April 12, 1950	Harry S. Truman
James E. Webb	July 13, 1946 - January 27, 1949	Harry S. Truman	Webb later became the first administrator of NASA under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson
Harold E. Smith	April 15, 1939 - June 19, 1946	Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman
Daniel W. Bell	September 1, 1934 - April 14, 1939	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Lewis Douglas	March 7, 1933 - August 31, 1934	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Clawson Roop	August 15, 1929 - March 3, 1933	Herbert Hoover
Herbert Lord	July 1, 1922 - May 31, 1929	Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover
Charles Dawes	June 23, 1921 - June 30, 1922	Warren G. Harding	Dawes would later become vice president of the United States under Calvin Coolidge and the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James's (the United Kingdom) under Herbert Hoover

Notes

Source

^ Vijayan, Jaikumar (January 10, 2008). "White House cuts paper out of federal budget". Computerworld. IDG. Retrieved 2008-06-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Other famous people who worked at the OMB

Ina Garten -- American author, and host of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa.
Joel Kaplan
Lawrence Kudlow
Sean O'Keefe -- later the administrator of NASA
Jim Tozzi
Robert Webb

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Structure of OMB

History

Directors of the Office of Management and Budget

Notes

Other famous people who worked at the OMB

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