in these challenging times it is imperative that we have strong leadership at omb.on this nomination. we can't afford to leave this position vacant at such a critical time. it is my hope to schedule a committee vote on this nomination soon that the full senate has time to confirm the nominee before it adjourned for the election. before we swear in the witness and hear his testimony we will turn first to senator gregg, the ranking member of this committee for his opening statement so i want to thanks senator gregg for accommodating this change in the schedule, because of votes that are to come in th senate this morning and i also want to express my very strong apprection to senator gregg for the support he has already shown for this nomination. senator gregg. >> thank you mr. chairman and i ologize i will have to leave early. there are people throughout our government who make government work. but large segments of or government work well, and it is because of the people who dedicate themselves to public serve and have gone the extra mile in that rea. certainly jack

in these challenging times it is imperative that we have strong leadership at omb. i hope we can move quickly on this nomination. we can't afford to leave this position vacant at such a critical time. it is my hope to schedule a committee vote on this nomination soon that the full senate has time to confirm the nominee before it adjourned for the election. before we swear in the witness and hear his testimony we will turn first to senator gregg, the ranking member of this committee for his opening statement so i want to thanks senator gregg for accommodating this change in the schedule, because of votes that are to come in the senate this morning and i also want to express my very strong appreciation to senator gregg for the support he has already shown for this nomination. senator gregg. >> thank you mr. chairman and i apologize i will have to leave early. there are people throughout our government who make government work. but large segments of our government work well, and it is because of the people who dedicate themselves to public service and have gone the ext

at omb much less though. the director of omb spends two thirds of his or her time in the west wing effectively as a presidential advisor. in that situation, you don't really have time to look out meeting the long term. so it depends on the government job. but the inner parts of the white house operation in particular your time is very constrained. >> charlie: did you change your mind having been where you were about some... the balance between private and public and how government policy can influence private sector contribution to the economy? >> i don't think that i changed my mind. >> charlie: did you learn something. >> i learned lots of things but i don't know that there was a mega story there. i learned lots of microstories not a deep philosophical shift. >> charlie: what was the most frustrating about it? >> i think what's most frustrating is the political environment in the sense that there is a lot of incentive on both sides to take things and kind of go to the cheap shot and, you know, probably it's

say a new team and perhaps a new policy. >> we've seen christina roemer leave and peter orszag the omb director to are replaced by jack lu from the state department and jack lu has had that job before could be a real star, a real major layplayer once he gets one job. at the same time they've got a lot of jobs to fill. let's talk about some of the names you at politico have been looking at. if it is someone at the ceo world who are you hearing about? >> ann mulcahey, ex-ceo at xerox, current ceo of xerox also a woman as well and there is a person that the census bureau, again, sort of a top level official there, so there are -- >> rebecca blank. >> that's correct. there are several names already. these are the names the white house floated last night, they want to kind of put out the story a little bit that they're going to be looking hard in the ranks, female business executive, people with disexperience will see what comes down the track here, laura tyson's name is heard as well, jared bernstein, the vice president's economist, obviously he is a white male, doesn't fit the model. they

so if the president had come to you and said, mr.irtor omb, i want to create the maximum number of jobs immediately or as soon as possible. the maximum number of jobs. that's why i'm stimulating the economy. would you say to him today that's exactly what i gave you? or not. with some small tweak? was there something you guys did not do that would have created jobs at a more significant level? >> the one thing that i any many... the one thing i think many economists would say it would have been beneficial to ha a larger share of the total would be assistance to state and local governments so they don't lay off workers. that has an immediate impact and it also helps to save jobs. now the problem is it's less salient. you don't see the road being built directly. >> charlie: rite rite right. n ideal world that would have been a larger share of the total. >> charlie: you never believe the idea that if you have to go pay people to dig a hole and then fill it back up that's not smart. >> well prublably we can have a two-for where we're getting the people benefiting from that and something usef

so your omb director is saying that if you guys go ahead with what you're proposing, which is allowing them to expire on the richest americans -- >> jake, i think that -- i think peter was mostly -- if i read the article correctly, i think peter was mostly discussing the permanence of and the extension of those that involved the middle class. >> but i'm specifically talking about this one -- yes, you're agreed -- >> well, i understand, i understand what you're reading. >> -- on the middle-class part of it. >> i think, in all honesty, in reading the article, i think peter had a congressional relations hat on in terms of what political price congress might have to go through to extend different things. that's not the viewpoint that the president holds. the president -- >> so you disagree that higher taxes, in terms of the bush tax cuts expiring, would crimp consumer spending -- you disagree with that? >> i think that if you make $250,000 a year in this economy, you're probably not putting off the purchase of a big-screen tv. i just -- i don't think your consumer demand is if you make a q

i want to ask you, when omb came back, backomb console you in the nasa budget?> the answer to that is, absolutely. let me answer that in more detail. as you know, this was not an ordinary year. it was a year where the determination was made after the receipt of the augustine report. of the priorities and the structure of the human space flight program was corn to be necessary. of necessity was the process figuring out what that -- what that process was. there have been a number of suggestions, including one that we heard in the opening statements. neither i nor the nasa administrator was involved in this process. i can assure you that the president's decision in this matter was not hasty and was not lacking of input from advisers. >> let me interrupt you. i am on limited time. when did the massive administrator -- when was he consulted in the period of time to weeks before the rollout of the budget? >> senator, i do not want to get into the deliberations and how they took place. uni both know that i cannot do that. >> let me ask you this. were any of the directo

we could not find a good answer with the omb profile. the ride manages to slipping the start of the heavy lift launch vehicle. it gives you time to let you lay more advanced technology and helps the early budget pressures when you are trying to keep the station going. you pay the price and you lose time in being able to pursue the program. the biggest risk is when five years comes or whatever it is, you do not restart. that would be a tragedy, in my opinion. to be the biggest risk. the auction we looked at, -- option we looked at is closer to the president's program. i have not seen the funding or any details, so i cannot testify to that. assuming it is fully funded, we found it was a rather exciting program. rather than wait 15 or 20 years and land on the moon, after a few years, and every few years thereafter, it accomplishes an objective you can point to. you can talk with an asteroid or tried to move one. you can go to a lagrange point and you could circumnavigate mars. you could orbit mars and land on one of mars' moons, and from th

peter orszag, the former omb director, wrote in "the new york times" a few days ago about the need, in his youth, to extend the bush tax cuts for two years. guest: well, that is not quite what peter said. what he said is that he felt the economy needed additional strategic federal interventions to strengthen the economy, and to continue the middle class portion tax cuts would be a good thing to do temporarily for the next two years, that in his view, the ideal policy would be to let the high-income part of the taxes -- of the tax reductions expire, as, in fact, george w. bush put it into the initial bill in 2001, that this was supposed to be a 10-year tax cut and only a 10-year tax cut, middle-class" portion -- and to continue only the "middle class" portion over the next two years. to say that teacher asked for a continuation of all the bush tax cuts -- to say that peter asked for a continuation of all the bush tax cuts for the next two years is not correct. he said it might be unnecessary compromise to get congress to do anything before the next election, but it is not the policy he

peter orr said this morning who up until last month was the omb director -- one nation, two deficits. deficits. it conclusions. extend the bush tax cuts until 2013 and then get rid of them altogether. they were first implemented back in 2001. one of the key issues congress will be dealing with when the house and senate lawmakers get back next week. he also looks at the deficit. let's look of the facts. projected deficit for 2015 is 4% to 5% of gdp depending on who's assumption you use. s sustainable level is more likely 3% or lower. so we need deficit reduction of 1% to 2% of gdp or about $200 billion. he goes on to read about medicare, medicaid, and social security saying these programs will account for more than half of spending in 2015. even if you reform social security, which we should. any plausible plan would phase and benefit changes to avoid harming current beneficiaries and would generate little savings over the next five years. of the health reform act included substantial savings in medicare and medicaid. more extensive comments this morning from peter orzag from the op-ed

peter orr said this morning who up until last month was the omb director -- one nation, two deficits. deficits. it conclusions. extend the bush tax cuts until 2013 and then get rid of them altogether. they were first implemented back in 2001. one of the key issues congress will be dealing with when the house and senate lawmakers get back next week. he also looks at the deficit. let's look of the facts. projected deficit for 2015 is 4% to 5% of gdp depending on who's assumption you use. s sustainable level is more likely 3% or lower. so we need deficit reduction of 1% to 2% of gdp or about $200 billion. he goes on to read about medicare, medicaid, and social security saying these programs will account for more than half of spending in 2015. even if you reform social security, which we should. any plausible plan would phase and benefit changes to avoid harming current beneficiaries and would generate little savings over the next five years. of the health reform act included substantial savings in medicare and medicaid. more extensive comments this morning from peter orzag from the op-ed