Gene Sperling | |
---|---|
Coordinator in the White House for the American Rescue Plan | |
In office March 15, 2021 –August 2024 | |
President | Joe Biden |
Preceded by | Office established |
Senior Advisor to the President for the American Rescue Plan | |
In office March 15,2021 –August 2024 Servingwith Mike Donilon,Anita Dunn [lower-alpha 1] ,Mitch Landrieu,John Podesta,Stephen Benjamin,Tom Perez and Annie Tomasini Previously served with Cedric Richmond [lower-alpha 2] ,Julie Rodriguez [lower-alpha 3] , Keisha Lance Bottoms [lower-alpha 4] and Neera Tanden [lower-alpha 5] | |
President | Joe Biden |
3rd and 9th Director of the National Economic Council | |
In office January 20,2011 –March 5,2014 | |
President | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | Larry Summers |
Succeeded by | Jeff Zients |
In office December 12,1996 –January 20,2001 | |
President | Bill Clinton |
Preceded by | Laura Tyson |
Succeeded by | Larry Lindsey |
Personal details | |
Born | Ann Arbor,Michigan,U.S. | December 24,1958
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Allison Abner |
Children | 2 |
Education | University of Minnesota (BA) Yale University (JD) University of Pennsylvania |
Eugene Benton Sperling (born December 24,1958) is an American lawyer who was director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. [3] He is the only person to serve as national economic advisor under two presidents. [4] Outside of government,he founded the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in 2002. [5]
In February 2021,as the nomination of Neera Tanden for OMB director faced opposition,Sperling was considered to be one of the leading contenders to assume the top position. [6] [7] Sperling served as Senior Advisor to President Biden and Implementation Coordinator of the American Rescue Plan. On August 5,2024,the White House announced that Sperling was leaving the administration to work with the Vice President's election campaign.
Sperling was born in Ann Arbor,Michigan, [8] the son of Doris Louise (née Hyman) and Lawrence Sperling. [9] He is of Jewish descent. [10] [8] He attended Pioneer High School and then Community High School from which he graduated. In 1982,he graduated with a B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota where he was captain of the Men's Varsity Tennis Team. [11] In 1985 he graduated with a juris doctor from Yale Law School where he served as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. [12] While at Yale Law School,he worked for future Labor Secretary Robert Reich. [13] He also attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania [14] and worked as an economic adviser on Michael Dukakis' campaign. [15]
Prior to joining the National Economic Council,Sperling served as deputy director of economic policy for the presidential transition and economic policy director of the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. From 1990 to 1992,he was an economic advisor to Governor Mario Cuomo of New York. [16]
Sperling served as deputy director (from 1993 to 1996) and then director (from 1996 to 2001) of the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration. As deputy director from 1993 to 1996,Sperling helped design and pass several of President Clinton's early initiatives,including 1993 Deficit Reduction Act, [16] the major expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, [17] and the Direct Student Loan Act. [18]
As director from 1996 to 2001,Sperling was a principal negotiator of the 1997 bipartisan Balanced Budget Act,which included the creation of the Children's Health Insurance Program. He reportedly held up the final negotiation to ensure that the design of the child tax credit would lead to bigger payments for lower-income families on the Earned Income Tax Credit. [19] [20] He also played a leading role in the design and passage of other Clinton administration economic initiatives,including the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit,the New Markets Tax Credit,the Children's Health Insurance Program,the Gear-UP Early College Mentoring program,expanded debt relief to poor nations,and stronger international protections against abusive child labor. [16] [21] [22] He was the architect of the Save Social Security First budget strategy,and co-negotiated the final week of the China WTO agreement in Beijing in 1999 with United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. Sperling worked with then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to negotiate protections for the Community Reinvestment Act in the Financial Modernization Act of 1999,also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. These protections helped secure passage of the bill. [23] Sperling represented the U.S. government and gave a keynote address at the World Education Forum in Dakar,Senegal in 2000,where the world committed to the second millennium development goal of universal primary education. [24] [25] [26]
After leaving the Clinton Administration,Sperling focused on promoting universal education,particularly for girls in poor and developing nations. [27] [24] In 2002,he founded the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution and served as its first executive director for seven years from 2002 to 2008. [28] [29] In that role,Sperling advocated for a global compact for education for all children,with publications on universal education for all nations in Foreign Affairs,The New York Times,Washington Post,Financial Times,Los Angeles Times,and IMF Quarterly:Finance and Development. [24] [30] [31] [32] He also authored concept papers for the Education for All Fast Track Initiative on Closing the Trust Gaps:Unlocking Financing for Education in Fragile State and How to Unlock Financing for Fragile States and Move Toward a More Unified Global Architecture for Education Financing:Eight Preliminary Recommendations. [33] [34] Sperling was a member of U.N. Millennium Task Force on Girls' Education. [35]
In 2003,Sperling also founded the Global Campaign for Education-US,a broad-based coalition of national and community-based organizations,international NGOs,teacher unions,faith-based groups,and think tanks dedicated to ensuring universal quality education for all children. [36] The organization's mission is "to promote education as a basic human right and mobilize to create political will in the United States and internationally to ensure universal quality education." [36]
In 2004,he co-authored the book What Works in Girls' Education:Evidence and Policies from the Developing World with Barbara Herz. [37] In addition,Sperling was also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress,and authored The Pro-Growth Progressive:An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity in that role. [38] For four years,he was a consultant and had partial writing credit for four episodes for the television series The West Wing . [39] Sperling is the author of the 2020 book Economic Dignity, [40] building on a 2019 piece he published in Democracy Journal. [41]
Sperling was a top economic adviser for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign. [42] [43]
Prior to joining the Obama administration,Sperling earned $887,727 from Goldman Sachs in 2008 for his work helping to create and implement their 10,000 Women charitable initiative,which funds business education for women in developing nations. He was also compensated $158,000 for speeches,mostly to financial companies. Sperling received $2.2 million in total compensation in 2008 from a variety of consulting jobs,board seats,speaking fees and fellowships. [44]
From 2009 to 2011,Sperling served as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He advised on responding to the financial crisis,was a member of the Obama Auto Rescue Task Force,was Geithner's top aide on fiscal,budget,tax,and small business issues,and coordinated the Treasury efforts on design and passage of the Affordable Care Act. [45] Sperling was a leading advocate in the administration for increasing refundable tax credits for working families,extending unemployment benefits,adding restrictions on executive compensation for companies receiving public funds,and proposing a fee on major financial institutions. [46] [47] [48] Sperling was reported to have been one of the key members of the administration to advocate to President Obama that he save Chrysler. [49] Sperling is credited with designing the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010,which created a $30 billion fund for loans and the State Small Business Credit Initiative. [47] [50] [51]
In January 2011,President Barack Obama appointed Sperling as the director of the National Economic Council,Sperling's second tenure in that position. In that role,Sperling played a key role representing the White House in budget negotiations with Congress as well as serving as the White House point person on several of the president's top priorities including job creation,manufacturing policy,housing,GSE reform,and skills initiatives. He was credited with being the key architect of the $447 billion American Jobs Act [52] and he led the Obama Administration's Detroit rescue task force in 2013,which mobilized $300 million to support Detroit. [53] Sperling also led the design and implementation of the president's initiatives on supporting workers facing long-term unemployment, [54] Manufacturing Innovation Hubs, [55] SelectUSA, [56] the College Opportunity Summit, [57] and the ConnectED initiative. [58] According to Robert Greenstein,president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,"If you look at key budget legislation –in 1993,1997,2009,2010 or 2012 –there is no administration official who did more over the past 20 years to dramatically expand tax credits for low-income workers,with the result that these credits now lift 10 million people out of poverty." [59]
Sperling was named one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Finance worldwide in 2013 by Worth Magazine. [60] He was named one of the 50 Most Powerful People in Washington by GQ in 2012. [61]
Sperling left the National Economic Council in March 2014. [62]
Two years after Sperling left the White House,a ProPublica article reported that he had taken loans totaling between $300,000 and $600,000 from Howard Shapiro,a lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr,between 2011 and 2013. [63] Shapiro has been Sperling's closest friend since they were housemates at Yale Law School in 1983. [64] Sperling stated that when his savings were depleted,he "took personal loans from my very closest friend of more than 30 years so that I could afford to remain in public service without having to sell our house when we had only two more years left with both of our children at home." [63] His house in Washington,D.C. was valued at "around $2 million." [63]
A White House spokesperson said that every loan had been "reviewed and cleared by White House Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics" and that "no issue came before Sperling that prompted him to recuse himself." [63] Kenneth Gross,a partner at Skadden,Arps,Slate,Meagher &Flom who specializes in federal gift and gratuity rules,stated that the fact that the loans were disclosed and cleared by the ethics office "takes the guy off the hook. What more is he supposed to do?" [63]
The ProPublica article stated that Sperling "played a role" in a federal and state government settlement with five major financial institutions over foreclosure and mortgage servicing abuses,and that WilmerHale was "one of many law firms involved in negotiating the settlement," though it did not state that Shapiro was involved in the settlement. [63] Sperling told ProPublica he was not involved in the negotiations and only "helped decide that settlement money would go toward reducing principal on mortgages for borrowers whose homes were worth less than their mortgages." [63] The Financial Times reported that Sperling met with groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to persuade them of the benefits the deal would have for borrowers. [65]
On March 15,2021,President Joe Biden announced that Sperling was selected to oversee the roll-out of the newly signed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. [66] He resigned in August 2024 in order to assume a position as a senior economic advisor on the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign. [67]
Sperling is married to television writer Allison Abner,whom he met when he was a consultant on NBC's The West Wing . [68] They have a daughter,Nina,and a son,Miles. [69]
Jeffrey Katzenberg is an American media proprietor and film producer who served as chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994, a position in which he oversaw production and business operations for the company's feature films. Following his departure, he co-founded DreamWorks SKG in 1994, where he served as the company's chief executive officer (CEO) and executive producer of its animated franchises—including Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon—until stepping down from the title in 2016. He has since founded the venture capital firm WndrCo in 2017, which invests in digital media projects, and launched Quibi in 2020, a defunct short-form mobile video platform that lost US$1.35 billion in seven months.
Roger Charles Altman is an American investment banker, the founder and senior chairman of Evercore, and a former Democratic politician. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Carter administration from January 1977 until January 1981 and as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration from January 1993 until he resigned in August 1994, amid the Whitewater controversy.
David Plouffe is an American political and business strategist best known as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. He is a senior advisor to Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign. A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant, he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, which he joined in 2000.
Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President is a book by journalist Ron Suskind, published by HarperCollins on September 20, 2011.
Austan Dean Goolsbee is an American economist and writer. He is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Goolsbee formerly served as the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. He was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2010 to 2011 and a member of President Barack Obama's cabinet. He served as a member of the Chicago Board of Education from 2018 to 2019.
Jacob Joseph Lew is an American attorney and diplomat serving as the United States ambassador to Israel. He was the seventy-sixth United States secretary of the treasury from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as the twenty-fifth White House chief of staff from 2012 to 2013 and as director of the Office of Management and Budget in both the Clinton administration and Obama administration.
Stephanie Cutter is an American political consultant. She served as an advisor to President Barack Obama during his first presidential term, and was deputy campaign manager for his 2012 re-election campaign. She previously worked in campaign and communications roles for other prominent Democrats including Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Michelle Obama. The New York Times described her as "a popular but polarizing face of [Obama's] campaign", and a "soldier who says the things the candidate can't say."
Jason Furman is an American economist and professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. On June 10, 2013, Furman was named by President Barack Obama as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Furman has also served as the deputy director of the U.S. National Economic Council, which followed his role as an advisor for the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign.
The presidential transition of Barack Obama began when he won the United States presidential election on November 4, 2008, and became the president-elect. Obama was formally elected by the Electoral College on December 15, 2008. The results were certified by a joint session of Congress on January 8, 2009, and the transition ended when Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009.
Michael Braverman Goodman Froman is an American lawyer who is the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Froman served as the U.S. Trade Representative from 2013 to 2017. He was Assistant to the President of the United States and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, a position held jointly at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. In that position he served as the United States sherpa to the G7, G8, and G20 summits of economic powers. On May 2, 2013, President Barack Obama nominated him to succeed Ambassador Ron Kirk as the U.S. Trade Representative. He was confirmed on June 19, 2013.
Thomas Edward Donilon is an American lawyer, business executive, and former government official who served as the 22nd National Security Advisor in the Obama administration from 2010 to 2013. Donilon also worked in the Carter and Clinton administrations. He is now Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute, the firm's global think tank.
Brian Christopher Deese is an American economic and political advisor who was the 13th director of the National Economic Council, serving under President Joe Biden.
The first 100 days of the Barack Obama presidency began on January 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. The first 100 days of a presidential term took on symbolic significance during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term in office, and the period is considered a benchmark to measure the early success of a president. The 100th day of his presidency ended on April 30, 2009. Obama stated that he should not be judged just by his first hundred days: "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference." Obama began to formally create his presidential footprint during his first 100 days. Obama quickly began attempting to foster support for his economic stimulus package, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The bill passed in the House on January 28, 2009, by a 244–188 vote, and it passed in the Senate on February 10 by a 61–37 margin.
Timothy Franz Geithner is an American former central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2003 to 2009, following service in the Clinton administration. Since March 2014, he has served as president and chairman of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm headquartered in New York City.
Barack Obama assumed office as president of the United States on January 20, 2009, and his term ended on January 20, 2017. The president has the authority to nominate members of his Cabinet to the United States Senate for confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.
Jeffrey Dunston Zients is an American business executive and a government official in the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden. Zients is currently serving as the 31st White House chief of staff. Earlier in the Biden administration, he served as counselor to the president and White House coronavirus response coordinator from January 2021 to April 2022.
The U.S.–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) was a high-level dialogue for the United States and China to discuss a wide range of regional and global strategic and economic issues between both countries. The establishment of the S&ED was announced on April 1, 2009, by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao. The upgraded mechanism replaced the former Senior Dialogue and Strategic Economic Dialogue started under the George W. Bush administration. High-level representatives of both countries and their delegations will met annually at capitals alternating between the two countries.
Michele Jolin is an American social entrepreneur and policymaker. She is the CEO and co-founder of Results for America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using evidence-based practices to get results-driven solutions. She is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress focusing on building a policy environment to support social entrepreneurship. She was appointed by President Obama in December 2010 to be a member of the White House Council for Community Solutions. In 2016, Jolin was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Evan Maureen Ryan is an American public servant, serving as White House cabinet secretary in the administration of Joe Biden. She previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) in the Obama administration (2013–2017) and was assistant for intergovernmental affairs and public liaison for then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Danielle Gray is the former Assistant to the President, Cabinet Secretary, and a Senior Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama. Previously, Gray served as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council and Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Gray is currently executive vice president and global chief legal officer of Walgreen Boots Alliance.
Sperling is not an economist by training, he is valued as a savvy political strategist with proven ability to extract victories on fiscal issues from a hostile Congress.
{{cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (help)