President-elect Barack Obama has picked former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle to head the Health and Human Services department. Roll Call reported that Obama's team made the offer and Daschle accepted, citing sources close to Daschle.
Daschle was around to see the health care reform efforts of 1994 fail, and has some ideas on how to avoid repeating the mistakes that killed that initiative, says Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Nov 19, 2008 at 6:59 PM0 comments
Terence Milholland, former executive vice president and chief technology officer at Visa International, is the new CTO of the Internal Revenue Service. IRS Comissioner D
ouglas
Shulman announced the appointment Nov. 17.
Milholland will be responsible for all aspects of the agency's systems, and will oversee a multi-billon dollar budget and the 7,000-person organization that maintains the more than 400 systems IRS uses.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Nov 19, 2008 at 6:59 PM0 comments
President-elect Barack Obama has named leaders of the working groups that will guide his administration in technology, innovation and government reform.
In a statement from the transition team, Obama announced his choices: Sonal Shah, Julius Genachowski and Blair Levin.
Shah heads Google's international development work. Genachowski has served on the Federal Communications Commission, co-founded Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital, and serves of several boards of directors. Levin is a managing director of Stifel Nicolaus and serves as that firm's chief analyst of telecommunications, media and technology regulation and strategy.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Nov 19, 2008 at 6:59 PM0 comments
Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, will be the next White House budget director, according to media reports. Orszag earlier served as an economic adviser in the Clinton White House.
The Obama transition team has not announced the appointment yet, but National Journal, CNN and other media organizations have reported it based on unnamed sources. Former Congressman Jim Nussle is the current Office of Management and Budget director.
After leaving the Clinton White House, Orszag became a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. When Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, they selected Orszag to head the CBO.
Posted by Michael Hardy on Nov 19, 2008 at 6:59 PM0 comments