Peter R. Orszag

Peter Orszag
37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget
In office January 20, 2009 – July 30, 2010
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Rob Nabors Jeffrey Liebman (Acting)
Preceded by	Jim Nussle
Succeeded by	Jeffrey Zients (Acting)
7th Director of the Congressional Budget Office
In office January 18, 2007 – November 25, 2008
Preceded by	Donald Marron (Acting)
Succeeded by	Robert Sunshine (Acting)
Personal details
Born	December 16, 1968 (age 43) Boston, Massachusetts
Political party	Democratic Party
Alma mater	Princeton University London School of Economics

Peter Richard Orszag (pronounced /ˈɔrzæɡ/; born December 16, 1968) is an American economist who is a Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup.^[1] He is also a columnist at Bloomberg View^[2] and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before joining Citigroup, he was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing columnist for the New York Times Op-Ed page.^[3] Prior to that, he was the 37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama.

Orszag is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, the Partnership for Public Service, and ideas42.

Biography

Orszag grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts^[4] in a Jewish family from Hungarian descent.^[5] After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy with high honors (1987), he earned an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1991, and a M.Sc. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) in economics from the London School of Economics. He was a Marshall Scholar 1991–1992, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.^[6]

Career

Orszag was a senior fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he directed The Hamilton Project and (in conjunction with Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute) the Pew Charitable Trust's Retirement Security Project.

He served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (1997–1998), and as Senior Economist and Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers (1995–1996) during the Clinton administration. He also formed a consulting group called Sebago Associates, which merged into Competition Policy Associates and was bought by FTI Consulting Inc. for a reported $70 million.^[7]

After leaving the Obama administration, Orszag took a job with Citigroup^[8]

He is also an invitee of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference at the Suvretta House in St. Moritz, Switzerland.^[9]

Congressional Budget Office

Orszag was director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2007 to November 2008. During his tenure, he repeatedly drew attention to the role rising health care expenditures are likely to play in the government's long-term fiscal problems—and, by extension, the nation's long-term economic problems. "I have not viewed CBO's job as just to passively evaluate what Congress proposes, but rather to be an analytical resource. And part of that is to highlight things that are true and that people may not want to hear, including that we need to address health-care costs."^[10] During his time at the CBO, he added 20 full-time health analysts (bringing the total number to 50), thereby strengthening the CBO's analytical capabilities and preparing Congress for health-care reform.^[10]

He was widely praised for his time at CBO for preparing the agency for the debates to come. When he stepped down, National Journal noted that "Orszag, who will turn 40 on Dec. 16, has been praised by lawmakers from both parties as an objective analyst with deep knowledge of the most pressing fiscal issues of the day, including health care policy, Social Security, pensions, and global climate change. He is the unusual economist who blends an understanding of politics, policy and communications in ways that wrap zesty quotes around complex ideas."^[11]

Office of Management and Budget

On November 25, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced that Orszag would be his nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, the arm of the White House responsible for crafting the federal budget and overseeing the effectiveness of federal programs.^[12][13]

Orszag, in a November 2009 speech in New York, said that deficits, expected to add $9 trillion to the current national debt of $12 trillion over the next decade, are "serious and ultimately unsustainable." He said that deficit spending was necessary to help boost the economy when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent. But he said that red ink must be stopped as the economy recovers. During a recovery, private investment will again pick up and compete with the federal government for capital.^[14]

In July 2010 Orszag said that “The problem now is weak growth and high unemployment rather than outright economic collapse,”. Still, the deficit would be equivalent to 10 percent of the gross domestic product, the highest level since World War II. The Office of Management and Budget’s mid-session review, forecast a smaller deficit and stronger economic growth than the administration’s initial budget release. The deficit forecast in 2011 increased to $1.42 trillion, up from the $1.27 estimate in February. For 2012, the deficit estimate rose to $922 billion, up from $828 billion in the previous report. The annual budget shortfall would bottom out in 2017 at $721 billion, or 3.4 percent of GDP, and begin rising again in following years.^[15]

A review of Orszag's daily schedules shows his sustained focus on healthcare reform as soon as he joined Obama’s Cabinet. The daily schedules for Orszag, who left his position as Office of Management and Budget director in July 2010, reveal that he and key White House aides regularly met to discuss healthcare starting in January 2009, within days of Obama entering office. Orszag also had meetings with insurance executives and health experts as the White House made health reform its top legislative priority after enacting the $814 billion stimulus.

When Orszag resigned, the Progressive Policy Institute summed up his time in office: "For an administration numbers-cruncher, he was unusually visible, which was a good thing. With a reputation for impartiality and brilliance, Orszag gave the administration’s agenda analytical ballast. There will no doubt be efforts on the right to brush Orszag with the red ink that the administration finds itself swimming in, but that’s politics as usual. Inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s, Orszag presided over the Herculean task of preventing a complete meltdown and setting the foundation for a recovery. In many ways, he’s a reflection of the administration at its best: a rigorous, pragmatic empiricist."^[16]

Citigroup and Bloomberg

Since January 2011, Orszag has been Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup. According to New York Magazine, "for an ambitious economist like Peter Orszag, going to work for Citigroup represented a choice. As a young staffer working in the Clinton White House, he saw laid before him two different paths: Stiglitzism and Rubinism. There were both intellectual and career-arc components to these. While both are liberal Democrats, Rubin was the consummate insider, whose philosophy was that the free markets, balanced budgets, and limited regulation would create a rising tide that would lift all boats (or at least make Wall Street not complain too much about Clinton’s social programs). Stiglitz, the public intellectual, is as concerned with the boats as with the tide. Orszag certainly had a lot in common with Stiglitz’s academic mien, having grown up in an intensely intellectual family in Lexington, Massachusetts, outside Boston. His father is a celebrated Yale math professor. But Orszag possessed an ambition that would take him beyond the ivory tower. He ultimately chose Rubinism. It makes perfect sense that Orszag would have been drawn toward Rubin. It must have been incredibly seductive seeing this world, watching the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party move so easily from government to Wall Street boardrooms to the table with Charlie Rose." ^[17]

Orszag has also been writing a weekly column for Bloomberg View.^[18] His early columns covered topics such as consumer-directed health care,^[19] political polarization,^[20] and growing gaps in life expectancy.^[21]

Personal life

Orszag is married to Bianna Golodryga, co-host of ABC's Weekend Good Morning America.^[22] They have a son, Jake Spencer Orszag, born in April 2012.^[23]

Orszag's first marriage was to Cameron Hamill, with whom he had two children.^[24][25] They later divorced.^[25][26] He also has a child with a former partner, Claire Milonas.^[25][27][28]

Economists Alan Blinder (who taught him at Princeton) and Joseph Stiglitz were his mentors early in life, and later Robert Rubin.^[29]

Orszag runs marathons and enjoys country music.^[29][30]

Bibliography

• Orszag, Peter (July 9, 2008). "Climate Change Economics". Washington Post: p. A15. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070802465.html. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
• Orszag, Peter, et al. American Economic Policy in the 1990s (MIT Press: 2002)
• Orszag, Peter, et al. Protecting the American Homeland: A Preliminary Analysis (Brookings Institution Press: 2002)
• Orszag, Peter, et al. Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach (Brookings Institution Press: 2004)
• Orszag, Peter, et al. Protecting the Homeland 2006/7 (Brookings Institution Press: 2006)
• Orszag, Peter, et al. Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement Security in America (Century Foundation Press: 2006)
• Orszag, Peter. 1999. Administrative Costs in Individual Accounts in the United Kingdom. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• "Implications of the New Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Risk-Based Capital Standard" (March).Fannie Mae Papers 1, no. 2 (March 2002)
• Orszag, Peter R. (October 1, 2008). "CBO's Analysis of Dodd Substitute Amendment for H.R. 1424" (PDF). Congressional Budget Office. pp. 2. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/98xx/doc9852/hr1424Dodd.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
• Orszag, Peter and Joseph E. Stiglitz. "Rethinking Pension Reform: Ten Myths about Social Security Systems." In Robert Holzman and Joseph Stiglitz, eds., New Ideas about Old Age Security. (The World Bank: 2001).
• Orszag, Peter, J. Michael Orszag. "The Benefits of Flexible Funding: Implications for Pension Reform in an Uncertain World." In Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics. (The World Bank: 2001).

References

External links

• OMB leadership biographies
• Article in the New Yorker, May 4, 2009
• Peter R. Orszag at WhoRunsGov at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Peter R. Orszag on Charlie Rose
• Peter R. Orszag collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Peter R. Orszag in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Peter Orszag articles and columns on Bloomberg Press

Political offices
Preceded by Jim Nussle	Director of the Office of Management and Budget Served under: Barack Obama 2009–2010	Succeeded by Jeffrey Zients Acting