POSITION: Director of Office of Management and Budget
NOMINEE: Neera Tanden
Born: September 10, 1970, Bedford, MA
Family: Spouse, Benjamin Edwards, 2 children
Occupation: Highlights: 1990s, White House Associate Director of Domestic Policy, Senior Advisor First Lady Hillary Clinton; 2003-2005, Legislative Director for Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY); 2009-2011, senior advisor to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services; 2015 – Present, President and CEO of Center for American Progress.
Education: Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles (1992) Juris Doctor from Yale Law School (1996)
On Roe v. Wade
Neera Tanden attributes defending Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court case that, alongside Doe v. Bolton, legalized abortion at all stages of pregnancy with no protections for the unborn or mother, as the reason she got into politics.
On Health Care
Neera Tanden served in the Obama administration as senior adviser to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services. She helped to draft the administration’s health care legislation, including work specific to its proposed, but later withdrawn, public option. She has been described as one of the “key architects” of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare contains federal subsidies/funds for plans covering elective abortion with massive taxpayer funding for abortion.
On Conscience Protections
Neera Tandem praised efforts to push contraception coverage as the strategy of using contraception as a wedge issue has been “successful as a political cudgel, helping isolate extreme … [pro-life] advocates from the mainstream.”
On Funding Abortion-Giant Planned Parenthood
In 2015 Neera Tanden criticized efforts to remove taxpayer-provided subsidies to the billion-dollar abortion-giant Planned Parenthood, calling the effort, as well as an effort to stop direct taxpayer funding of abortions in the District of Columbia, as “irresponsible” and “counterproductive.”
On Protecting Women and the Unborn
In 2020 the Center for American Progress spoke out against numerous states passing pro-life laws that would require abortion facilities to meet basic health standards, giving medical attention to babies born after an abortion, requiring medical supervision for dangerous abortion drugs and late-term abortion bans.
On Making America More Liberal
She has claimed that her goal was to shift the national political conversation in a liberal direction. She said, “our goal has always been to have a pan-progressive tent.”
On Center for American Progress and “The Resistance”
The Center for American Progress (formerly the American Majority Institute) launched on July 7, 2003, with an approximately $10 million budget. Created by a group of prominent liberal Democrats including Neera Tanden, billionaire financier George Soros, former Clinton administration White House Chief of Staff and Obama White House Counselor to the President John Podesta, and Morton Halperin from Soros’ Open Society Institute. The idea behind CAP was that it would serve as a “political research institute” that functioned as a liberal counter to conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.
In 2017, CAP Action announced that the organization was seeking to become the “nerve center for the anti-Donald Trump resistance” and announced a plan to create a war-room “which its leaders hope will provide Democrats with a centralized resource to oppose the president-elect’s moves — starting with his Cabinet nominations.” Adam Jentleson, the war room’s director, said that his hope is “to bring is a relentlessly aggressive attitude and orientation toward holding Trump accountable every single day.” Further, he said, “they [CAP Action] have incredible resources here, a large staff, and I think what I hope to do is look to weaponize all of the resources that CAP can bring to bear.”
Center for American Progress Dark Money
The Washington Post reports that under Neera Tanden CAP has taken in tens of millions of dollars from foreign and corporate interests. Fellow Democrat former-Representative Tulsi Gabbard summed it up:
Neera Tanden’s ‘think tank’ took millions from Wall Street, UAE, & defense contractors. She advocated taking Libya’s oil to pay for bombs we destroyed their country with. At OMB she’ll support more costly regime change wars & military-industrial complex. Senators, I urge a NO vote — Tulsi Gabbard ???? (@TulsiGabbard) December 3, 2020
Controversies Over Leaked E-Mails
In 2016, many of Neera Tanden’s emails to cohort John Podesta were leaked by Wikileaks. From the liberal magazine New Republic:
WikiLeaks release of the hacked emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, who founded CAP in 2003. These emails, in which Tanden is a frequent figure, reveal an operator who, in spite of her professed deference to “serious ideas,” has actively blurred the lines between policy and politics, all to advance a single goal: electing Hillary Clinton. Even Tanden’s many, often amusing criticisms of Clinton, particularly for using a private email server, fall under this category. In pursuit of that goal, she has consistently prioritized politics over policy, and frozen out dissenters who might otherwise have ideas of value to contribute to the Democratic agenda. . . . Tanden’s story is a typical one. As the Podesta emails show time and again, this is just how Washington works. Call it the banality of D.C. politics.
The language that Tanden used in the emails against people she disagreed with became a point of controversy. The New York Times described Tanden’s emails as “profanity-laced” and fiercely protective of Hillary Clinton.
Other Controversies
During the 2017 wildfires in southern California, Neera Tanden replied to a tweet talking about then head of Fox News Rubert Murdoch’s house burning down: “There’s a God, and she’s unhappy,” describing the fire as an act of “karma.” Tanden later deleted the tweet, saying “it wasn’t funny.”
In a piece for the Huffington Post in 2016 entitled, “Donald Trump Doesn’t Deserve the Support of American Hindus” she questioned an Indian-American businessman’s support for Republican candidate Donald Trump and suggested because of his race, he should not support the candidate of his choosing.
On Confirmation
“Neera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senators’ whose votes she’ll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed,” tweeted Drew Brandewie, the communications director for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Neera Tanden has tweet attacked many of the Senators she now needs support from.
From Politico
To former Sanders staffers and allies, Tanden is one of the Democratic elites who helped sink his 2016 campaign behind the scenes, not to mention a union-buster, a threat to Social Security, a hippie-puncher who constantly picks fights with the left, and much more.
“I don’t know anyone personally in Bernie’s world who is happy about this choice,” said Briahna Joy Gray, Sanders’ former national press secretary. “We’re talking about a woman who’s notorious for assaulting Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager.”