Neera Tanden: Biography, Personal Profile of the next budget director

Who is Neera Tanden: Biography, Personal Profile of the next budget director

Neera Tanden's hopes of becoming the next head of the powerful Office of Management and Budget are in jeopardy after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., a key swing vote, announced his opposition last week due to her caustic Twitter history. Tanden's confirmation began unraveling last week after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced he would not support her nomination,triggering a string of moderate Republicans to say they would vote against her.

If confirmed, Tanden would become the first woman of color and first South Asian to lead the OMB. Without Manchin's support, she needs at least one Republican to vote in her favor to be confirmed.

But it will hardly be the first taste of power for Tanden, who is the daughter of Indian immigrant parents and often makes the list of the most powerful people in the US capital.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration is "committed to continuing to fight" for Tanden and dismissed reports that Shalanda Young, nominated by Biden as deputy director of OMB, has been floated to replace her.

Tanden, 51, is a Yale Law alumna who currently serves as chief executive of the think tank Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy organisation based in Washington.

A policymaking veteran, she served as a healthcare adviser in the erstwhile Obama administration, where she played a key role in framing provisions of the Affordable Care Act or ‘Obamacare’.

She has also served on the presidential campaigns of several Democratic candidates, from former Michael Dukakis in 1988 — when she was a college student — to Bill Clinton in 1992, Obama in 2008, and Hillary in 2016 (she also worked with Hillary before she was surpassed by Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008).

Neera Tanden Family - Biography - Early Life

For Tanden, working for Democrats is a personal choice. It’s the policies of the Democrats, she has been quoted as saying, that helped her single mother raise her and her brother and give them a good education, when their father went away “for a time” after her parents’ divorce.

Tanden was born on 10 September 1970, in Bedford, Massachusetts, to immigrant parents from India. She has an elder brother, Raj. Her parents divorced when she was five years old and Tanden’s mother survived on welfare for almost two years before securing a job as a travel agent.

When she was 5, her parents got divorced and her father moved back to India. Tanden and her older brother Raj were raised by their mom Maya, who worked as a travel agent.

During their childhood, her mother was actively engaged in Bedford’s Democratic Town Committee, which is believed to have piqued Tanden’s interest in politics.

It was during her time at UCLA that she met her husband, Benjamin Edwards, a fellow student, while working for the Dukakis campaign. When they got married, Hillary threw the couple a wedding shower at the White House. She has described that moment as a proud one for her mother. Edwards is an artist and the couple has two children, a daughter and a son. She and her family are currently based in Washington DC.

Neera Tanden is Biden’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget.

Political Career of Neera Tanden

Tanden pursued a bachelor of science degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a law degree at the Ivy League Yale Law School.

Despite being born and brought up in the US, Tanden faced the “go back where you came from” jibe — a common racist potshot — in 2016. In a tweet last July, she cited the experience to explain her opposition to US President Donald Trump, who has been accused of supporting white supremacy.

It was a moving moment for Tanden when Kamala Harris — daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother — emerged as the first Indian-American Vice-President-elect last month.

After obtaining her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1992, and graduating from Yale Law School with a Juris Doctor in 1996, Tanden began her career as a political wonk working for the reelection campaign of President Bill Clinton.

After Clinton’s reelection, she landed a job at the White House press office. Soon Tanden moved to the domestic policy office as an associate director, where she got an opportunity to work with First Lady Hillary Clinton.

After the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, then the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, she helped the first lady draft policy on school safety, impressing Clinton.

One of the highlights of her young White House career was a wedding shower gave by the first lady at the Yellow Oval Room, in the East Wing of the White House, before she married Benjamin Edwards. Tanden and Edwards met at University of California, Los Angeles during freshman year. They have two children: daughter Ilina, who was born in 2002 and son Jaden, born in 2005.

In 1999, when Hillary Clinton was exploring to run for the U.S. Senate from New York, Tanden moved to the Big Apple. Eventually, she served as the successful campaign’s policy director and deputy campaign manager.

From 2003 to 2005, Tanden was Clinton’s legislative director. In 2008, during the former first lady’s unsuccessful presidential bid, Tanden served as a policy director, and in the general election campaign, she worked for Barack Obama as domestic policy director.

In the first Obama administration, Tanden worked for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as a senior advisor. She was one of the policy gurus deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

In 2010, she rejoined the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, which she had helped found seven year earlier, as the chief operating officer. In November 2011, she succeeded John Podesta as the organization’s President and CEO.

During her 9 years as head of CAP, Tanden was a prolific fundraiser. In fact, her role as a fundraiser was scrutinized by the Washington Post in early December after she was picked by President-elect Joe Biden to run the budget office.

Who is Neera Tanden - Director of Office of Management and Budget: Biography, Career, Time Life and Family Neera Tanden, who is trusted by Joe Biden to be the Director of Office of Management and Budget, is the first Indian-American and the first ...

Who is Gerard Depardieu: Bio, Acting Career, Rape Investigation French actor Gerard Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault allegedly committed in 2018 against an actress in her 20s. For more information ...

Who is Ted Cruz: Biography, Career, Family, Nationality and Personal Profile Ted Cruz cites “wanting to be a good dad” for traveling to Cancún during Texas power outages. Who is U.S. Senator Ted Cruz: Biography, Career, ...

Who is Rose Leslie – the Game of Thrones stars welcome baby: Bio, Career, Marriage with Kit Harrington Rose Leslie, a Scottish actress, and Kit Harington have become parents to a baby boy. Read this article to know more about her life and ...

Who is Mukesh Ambani - India's Wealthiest Tycoon: Bio, Career, Private Life and Protected like "National Asset" Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is the chairman and managing director (CMD) of Reliance Industries which has earned the reputation of being one of the largest private-sector ...