Sperling to Head National Economic Council
Bloomberg reports:
President Barack Obama will name Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as head of the National Economic Council, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Sperling, 52, is returning to the post he held from 1997 to 2001 under former President Bill Clinton. He replaces Lawrence Summers, who was NEC director for the first two years of Obama’s presidency and left last month to return to Harvard University.
Obama is set to announce several appointments to his economic team tomorrow. They are among a series of changes for the White House staff as the president enters the second half of his term and prepares for a campaign for re-election in 2012. Obama today named William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former commerce secretary, as his new chief of staff.
“This is a pretty major retooling,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who plans to leave his post, said of the changes at a briefing yesterday.
The National Economic Council coordinates administration policy and gauges the effect of legislation. The director’s job is a key post as the White House tries to get its economic agenda through a Congress where Republicans now control the House of Representatives and Democrats have a narrower majority in the Senate.
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