Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
      • Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 3
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Election 2024
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Neera Tanden speaks at Senate hearing.
Neera Tanden speaks during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday. (Photo by Ting Shen-Pool/Getty Images)

Politics

OMB nominee Tanden apologizes for tweets, talks about combating inequality

Senators on two committees asked the Biden nominee about past criticism of lawmakers of both parties.

Chabeli Carrazana

Economy Reporter

Chabeli Carrazana portrait

Published

2021-02-10 14:23
2:23
February 10, 2021
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Neera Tanden, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, faced two tough days of questioning by senators who wondered whether Tanden’s prior incendiary remarks about members of Congress from both parties made her a poor fit for an influential position in the administration. 

Tanden, the current president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank, would be the first woman of color and first South Asian American to serve as director of the OMB, if confirmed. But she faces more opposition than most of Biden’s nominees at least in part because her nomination shocked Republicans.

Several Republicans said they thought Tanden’s language on Twitter, in particular, made her incapable of being a good faith, bipartisan negotiator. In her remarks Tuesday before the Senate Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Tanden said she recognized that her prior role as a liberal advocate allowed for a different tone than the one she’d hope to set as a member of the administration.

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, listed out specific disparaging tweets Tanden wrote about Republican senators during that hearing. Portman served as OMB director in the George W. Bush administration. 

“You wrote that Susan Collins is ‘the worst.’ Tom Cotton is a fraud. That vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz. You called Leader McConnell ‘Moscow Mitch’ and ‘Voldemort,’” said Portman, who also questioned Tanden on deleting more than 1,000 pointed tweets in November shortly after the election. “How do you plan to mend fences and build relationships with members of Congress you have attacked through your public statements?”

Tanden apologized several times during the hearings for her prior tweets, saying she “deeply regrets” her language. It’s why she deleted tweets in the past few months, she said, adding that no one from the administration advised her to do so. 

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

“I recognize that this role is a bipartisan role, and I know I have to earn the trust of senators across the board. I will work very aggressively to meet that concern,” Tanden said. “…For those concerned about my rhetoric and my language: I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for any hurt that they’ve caused.” 

The discourse over Tanden’s past language, which spanned both days of hearings, was also linked to the reality that many Republicans did not condemn former President Donald Trump for his use of divisive language on social media platforms, including against members of his own party. 

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow addressed that duality: “We’ve endured years of mean tweets, I know we are all thinking that,” she said. On the concern from senators over Tanden’s language, Stabenow added that she wished “we had seen those comments consistently over the last four years.” 

But Tanden also has a long, bitter history with progressives, and particularly Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Budget Committee that Tanden faced Wednesday. 

At the hearing Wednesday, Sanders opened by advocating for civil discourse and admonishing Tanden for her prior conflicts with Republicans and Democrats — “me personally,” he said. 

“You come before this committee to assume a very important role in the United States government at a time when we need serious work on serious issues and not personal attacks on anybody whether they’re on the left or the right,” Sanders said. 

“Social media does lead to too many personal comments and my approach will be radically different,” Tanden said.

Sanders is expected to support her nomination. 


In terms of policy, Tanden’s perspective will in part be shaped by her background as the daughter of an Indian immigrant, she said. As OMB director, she would be tasked with leading an office that will implement Biden’s budget and policy agenda across government agencies, as well as oversee regulatory policy that can dip into a number of fields, including cyber security, climate change and domestic job growth. 

Tanden said she has personally been impacted by the decisions OMB has made in the past. Her mother, Maya, who joined her at the Tuesday hearing, left India following a divorce and relied on food stamps and Section 8 housing to make ends meet for her two children. 

“I remember being the only kid in the cafeteria line who used 10-cent vouchers from the Free Lunch Program. I remember using food stamps at the grocery store,” Tanden said Tuesday. “As I sit before this committee, I’m mindful that my path in life would never have been possible without budgetary choices that reflected our nation’s values — many of them made in the very agency I am now nominated to lead. That recognition and gratitude has been the north star of my career.” 

Inequality, therefore, was centered in much of Tanden’s policy discussions over two days of questioning. 

“I would note that, as we experience the deep economic challenges we’re facing, women are disproportionately being impacted by that. The recession is having a disproportionate impact on caregiving, and women are leaving because they need to take care of children who are not in school, amongst other reasons,” Tanden said. 

She highlighted parts of Biden’s 10-year caregiving plan that includes expanding access to paid leave and creating universal, free pre-kindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds, as well as an expanded child care tax credit. 

Critically, Tanden said she thinks the investments on child care and working parents should not be just in response to the coronavirus pandemic, but long-term. 

To pay for part of that, Biden and his team are facing opposition from Republicans and economists on the left about whether the $1.9 trillion price tag on his coronavirus relief package — one that will include an expansion of paid leave and emergency aid to the child care industry — is too high. 

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who previously served as a senior fellow at CAP, has argued in a Washington Post editorial that the price tag is too big and too risky. 

Asked about those comments Tuesday, and whether she will be able to provide accurate information on the distribution of funds in her role at the OMB, Tanden said, she “100 percent believes that it is critical for policymakers and the public to have information about … where their resources are going.” 

Tanden also echoed statements made by other Biden Cabinet nominees for economic positions that it’s best to “act big” now that interest rates are low to prevent future scarring in the economy. 

“We still have a lot of economic pain and in this moment we do have to ensure strong economic recovery which over the long run, would make us stronger,” she said. “It may put us in a better position to address deficit issues, but as a matter we should all be concerned about long-term fiscal sustainability.”

One of the most disputed parts of Biden’s plan is his inclusion of an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 — a rate that has remained unchanged since 2009 — to $15 an hour by 2025. The policy would benefit 17 million workers whose wages will rise, but it will cost 1.4 million workers their jobs, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Women, who make up two-thirds of the country’s 40 lowest-paid jobs, would be the most likely to be lifted out of poverty as a result, but also the most likely to be in jobs that may disappear. 

That component of Biden’s proposal has faced stark opposition from Republicans. Tanden said Wednesday that she supports it. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose parents owned a restaurant-bar in South Carolina, got into a heated exchange with Tanden about her support of the measure, asking her if she “had ever run a restaurant.” 

“You need to go talk to some people who have because it will give you some facts,” Graham said. 

Tanden was also asked to defend how her past interactions with Wall Street as head of CAP will play out in a position where she’s implementing worker-focused policies put forth by the Biden administration. In her nine years at the think tank, Tanden heavily fundraised, bringing in at least $33 million between 2014 and 2019 from the financial sector. Sanders and Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy questioned those relationships. 

“At the Center for American Progress, we proposed a financial transaction tax, we proposed higher regulations of Wall Street, we proposed dealing with carried interest … we proposed a whole series of policy proposals that would restrict the power of Wall Street,” Tanden said. “I believe Wall Street has too much power in our political discourse, and I have said that multiple times. I have said that in every role.”

Tanden’s nomination must next be approved by both Senate committees, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Budget, before it can move to a vote by the full Senate. 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

Up Next

Politics

19 Minutes with The 19th: What’s happening in state legislatures across the country

Join us on Instagram Live Friday, February 12, at 5 p.m. CT. Hear from statehouses reporter Barbara Rodriguez, who will talk about what it’s like covering statehouses nationwide and what to expect from state legislatures on issues like health care and LGBTQ+ rights in the coming months.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram