President-elect Joe Biden and his team just announced Neera Tanden as pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget. While many people tweeted to offer her congratulations, others pointed out that she’s just another big-government, big-spending radical liberal. Drew Brandewie, the communications director for Sen. John Cornyn, even went so far as saying there is “zero chance” that she would be confirmed by the Senate in the coming year.
“Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed,” tweeted Brandewie.
Neera Tanden is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress and has been a longtime adviser to Hillary Clinton during her 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns. She also worked as a healthcare reform adviser to former President Barack Obama, where she talked about making cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. She is known for being a hardcore anti-Trumper and helping engineer the Affordable Care Act in the Obama administration.
Brandewie’s complaint aligned with many others who called out the nominee as the most “toxic” member of the corporate Democratic Party. He told reporters that her insulting comments about many members of the Senate creates a problematic path for someone who needs enough votes to get confirmed.
Tanden has been highly critical of a number of Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who she called “Moscow Mitch.” She accused him of being weak and reckless on Russian matters. Sen. McConnell tweeted shortly after her nomination to call it a “sacrifice to the confirmation gods.” Over the years, Tanden has constantly accused Republicans of giving “massive cuts” to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations, while raising taxes on millions of working and middle-class Americans.
“We think that those are legitimate ideas that need to be part of a proposal where everyone’s at the table. We don’t just ask middle-class Americans to sacrifice. We ask all Americans,” said Tanden in a 2012 interview backing social security cuts. She said Americans need to put “entitlement on the table” as well as taxes.
Biden has not only angered Republicans with his nomination, but progressive Democrats as well. Presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders, has been highly critical of the “destructive role” the Center for American Progress has played in creating division in the country. In April 2019, Sanders sent a letter to the organization accusing Tanden of “maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas.”
Former employees of the Center for American Progress also admitted they felt Tanden was using the organization as “an engine for her ambition” at her colleagues’ expense.
Biden pushed Social Security cuts under the Obama Administration for four years and then falsely claimed in January that he’s been fighting to protect and expand social security. Now he’s nominated a woman who’s spent her entire career slashing Social Security. When do the lies end?
