Business

Trump taps Mulvaney for budget director

by Elliot Smilowitz - 12/17/16 8:15 AM ET

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, he announced Saturday morning.

“We are going to do great things for the American people with Mick Mulvaney leading the Office of Management and Budget,” Trump said in a statement.

{mosads}“Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink.”

Mulvaney called the nomination a “great honor” and pledged to restore “restore budgetary and fiscal sanity.”

“Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hardworking Americans do every day,” he added.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called Mulvaney “the absolute right choice.”

“In Congress, he has been a conservative reformer from day one, proposing solutions to fix the budget process and our regulatory system. At OMB, he will lead the work he has started to improve the way government does the people’s business,” Ryan added.

Reports emerged Friday evening that Trump was going to pick Mulvaney, a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Mulvaney, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said in october that he “would love to be director of OMB” when asked what position in Trump’s administration he would want.

“That is where I think real improvements can be made in how the government is run.”

The OMB chief is responsible for administering the federal budget and measuring the performance of federal agencies.

The budget director is also tasked with for procurement, or setting and enforcing federal practices and policies regarding the purchase of goods and services.

Mulvaney visited Trump Tower last week, according to pool reports.

– Mark Hensch contributed.

– Updated at 10:41 a.m.

Tags Donald Trump Paul Ryan