Shalanda Young confirmed as No. 2 budget official
WASHINGTON — Late one night in February 2019, as lawmakers toiled to break a monthslong impasse over funding a wall at the southwestern border, Shalanda Young leaned over to quietly confer with her boss, Rep. Nita Lowey of New York.
Now was her moment, Young told Lowey, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, to issue an ultimatum on funding for former President Donald Trump’s border wall: Republicans could either accept even less than what they had suggested, or Lowey would walk away from the negotiating table and potentially allow the government to shut down again.
Republicans agreed, and the resulting deal ended a spending fight that had led to the longest government shutdown in history. It is the kind of delicate agreement that has earned Young bipartisan trust on Capitol Hill, where she was confirmed by the Senate Tuesday, 6337, to serve as President
Joe Biden’s deputy budget director.
As the first Black woman to serve as staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, Young played critical roles on Capitol Hill in negotiating not only the dozen annual spending bills, but also a series of five pandemic relief packages that together totaled $3 trillion and represented the leading edge of a sweeping federal response to the crisis.
Now she is headed to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue to become the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. After Biden’s pick to lead the agency, Neera Tanden, withdrew amid bipartisan opposition, Young will have a leading role steering the office in the coming weeks as the administration begins to prepare its first budget proposal and pursue an ambitious infrastructure plan.
The administration is set to release its funding priorities next week, the agency confirmed Tuesday and Bloomberg reported earlier.
Biden has not said whether he will elevate Young to the position of director. But among lawmakers, she is by far the preferred candidate, having drawn an unusual array of public endorsements from across the political spectrum based on her work on the Appropriations Committee. Young, a 43yearold Louisiana native, would be the first Black woman to lead the agency should Biden nominate her.
“I knew that she was the person who had the skills. She had the knowledge, and she always had a smile,” Lowey, now retired from Congress, said in an interview. “She’s smart. She’s tough. You can be sure she’ll have the facts.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and top House Democrats have repeatedly and publicly telegraphed their support for Young to the White House. Even before Tanden withdrew, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top
Republican on the Appropriations Committee, announced that he would support Young as director.
“She knows how to bring things together, and that’s what we as appropriators try to do,” Shelby said Tuesday. “They’re going to have challenges — a lot of hard work — and they need experienced people.”
The agency will play a key role in fulfilling Biden’s agenda, as well as overseeing the federal budget and executive regulations. Trump frequently thrust the office into the spotlight, given his penchant for trying to use government funding to carry out his policy and political agenda.
The most notable instance became the center of the first impeachment charges against Trump in 2019, when lawyers at the budget office approved a hold on foreign aid to Ukraine as Trump sought a commitment from the country’s leaders to investigate Biden and his family.