Majority leaders in the House and Senate are reportedly replacing Douglas Elmendorf as director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO, which was created as a non-partisan agency under a 1974 law, provides budget and economic analyses to Congress to help them make decisions on government programs. The CBO, for example, weighs in on sequestration cuts and other congressional proposals.
According to news reports, the leadership has a few candidates in mind to replace Elmendorf: Alex Brill, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an economist who served on former President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers; Jeffrey Brown, a finance professor at the University of Illinois who also served on the Council under Bush; and Warren Payne, who served as policy director under former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan.
“I would just say that we are looking forward to having a new director and some changes,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a member of the House Budget Committee.
