White House Budget Director Resigns

(AP)  White House budget director Rob Portman is resigning and will be replaced by former Iowa Rep. Jim Nussle, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.

Nussle ran for governor of Iowa last year and was defeated. He has been serving in Iowa as an adviser in former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

The changes were to be announced Tuesday by President Bush.

Portman, who was a six-term congressman from Cincinnati, left his career on Capitol Hill to join the Bush administration two years ago as trade representative and was named budget director a little more than a year ago to replace Josh Bolten when he became White House chief of staff.

Portman said he was leaving the administration for personal reasons. His family has remained in Cincinnati and he has been commuting home on weekends for 14 years.

"I need to be home more. I've got three kids ages 12 to 17. It's just been very hard to spend as much time with them and Jane as I need to at this time of my life," he said.

Portman also made it clear he might seek a return to elective office, either by running for governor of Ohio or for the Senate.

Portman said the president "is in a good position" to contest the Democratic-controlled Congress over spending if necessary. The White House has issued some veto threats against spending bills in recent days, and more are coming, the budget director said.

Nussle's appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.

He was first elected to Congress in 1990, and quickly distinguished himself as a member of the "Gang of Seven," a group of young Republicans who demanded changes in the methods the Democrats used to run the House.

He later served three terms as chairman of the House Budget Committee, where he favored budget plans that accommodated Mr. Bush's tax cuts as well as the spending restraint that conservative Republicans advocated.

Portman entered politics as a New Hampshire advance man on the 1980 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush. He worked as a White House lobbyist in the first President Bush's administration and later played the role of Sen. Joe Lieberman in Dick Cheney's vice presidential debate preparations in 2000. Four years later, Portman again impersonated the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. John Edwards, in Cheney's debate preparations.

In Congress, Portman was a top liaison between Congress and the Bush White House, working behind the scenes from his posts on the Budget Committee and the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

As trade representative, he was key to finessing House passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, but had less success in pushing forward global trade negotiations.

[forthepeopl1]

the people party is here already,are you ready

JULY 21 2007 IS WHEN AMERICANS WILL BE FREE AGAIN

EVERYONE THAT WANTS TO HELP WITH THIS SHOULD BE TALKING TO ALL MEDIA OUTLETS AND TELLING THEM THAT AMERICANS ARE READY TO TAKE WASHINGTON ON AND ITS NOT A FEW AMERICANS ITMILLIONS OF AMERICANS THAT WILL TAKE BACK THERE COUNTRY..

I AM WILLING TO GIVE MY BLOOD FOR ALL AMERICANS TO GET OUR COUNTRY BACK TO WHAT OUR FORFATHERS WANTED.

AM A VET AND AM READY TO TAKE CHARGE OF THIS AMERICAN BOYCOT/COOP IF WE THE PEOPLE DONT DO THIS NOW WE WILL BE GIVENING UP ON OUR CONSTITUTION AND WHAT ALL OUR VET HAVE DIED FOR..

DAVID A BELANGER,VET US ARMY,[e-mail]

ok so wants to join in on this great american REVOLUTION


they cant kill millions of americans at once so if we charge them all at once we will win and take them out and hang them all..

just like in the old days of the west...hang them from the trees in front of the whitehouse and see how many start telling the truth about what they have done to all us americans..


if the american NOW dont stand up and start a NATIONAL REVOUTION ON THIS WASHINGTON BULL S/H/I/T/ THEN we as TRUE AMERICANS can say nothing!!!

its time to take all this *** and take our government back now..

they are the ones that started this and we will finnish it now..we the people will take our country back and everyone in washington can sit there and thinks we the people are ok with what they are doing..

[reel-crazy]

Human Resource Managers:

Rob Portman

Please make a note of that name in case his resume graces your desks.

You may thank me later...

[aaabee-2009]

What a resume, lobbiest, Gang of Seven'r, Democrat-impersonator, GOP budget director (of our trillion dollar deficit).

Yes, please elect this one to some other high-paid government position. He has the Rush Limbaugh squeal of approval.

[aaabee-2009]

Yes, I too need to be home more.

However. I have to work for a living.

Makes me puke every time I hear that spend-more-time-with-family ***.

I bet he was given the option, get lost or get fired.

[rushlimpdrug]

Someone was directing the budget?

[gkc99]

Conservative Republicans advocate spending restraints?! Riiiight! Like a trillion dollar war put on a credit card? While billionaires get big income and inheritance tax cuts from Bushit & Co.?

While the national debt goes up 50+% under the Bushit / Chickenshit administration?

Get real!

[ubrew12]

"...he favored budget plans that accommodated Mr. Bush's tax cuts as well as the spending restraint that conservative Republicans advocated. "

He's smart to distance himself from that catastrophy. The U.S. is slowly waking up to the fact that it's been financially gutted, and this guy is a reason why. Better get out of town now.

'spending restraint' Wow, what a laugh!

[beanerman4]

guess he doesn't want to go down as the worst White House budget director in history, along with the worst president in history.

[realpatriot1]

Parrot2,

Looking at all that red ink for a year is enough to drive anyone home.

He'll be spending more time with family and they'll be caring for him.

[minminmin-2009]

I can hear his wife now....

"Me here alone with 3 teenagers??? Get your a$$ back here!"

I can't blame her.