An unlikely power figure has emerged in the Obama Administration. He’s not a great orator, nor trendy, nor well-known.  But, if the ability to influence national leaders, shape a national agenda and influence public opinion are indicators, then, Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is, arguably, the most powerful and,  potentially, most dangerous, man in Washington, DC.

As Director of OMB, Peter Orszag is the arbiter of all financial information shared with Congress.  A series of little-known, OMB “circulars”, such as A-11, have established the rules, and repercussions if violated, by which Executive branch agencies communicate with Congress, especially regarding budgets, funding and agency priorities.

OMB, the President’s gatekeeper for budget matters, executes a complicated juggling act, balancing Obama Administration priorities and budgetary spin, against agency needs.   Frequently, to secure a critical vote, an elected member may be rewarded with a pork project for the folks back home, and, often, it’s the OMB director that has to figure out how to avoid the appearance of a bald-faced bribe, while manipulating CBO scoring on infrastructure projects.  Orszag, as the former head of CBO, understands exactly how this game is played.  Thus, most of the project and budget information that Congress reviews have been shaped by OMB’s preferences.

Peter Orszag controls much of the content and quantity of the data flow to Congress, to the President and to American citizens.  Orszag has oversight over most of the federal government’s critical data reporting structures.  Apart from the ineffective and error-prone Stimulus reporting sites (data.gov, recovery.gov),, OMB oversees federal contract opportunities and federal grants.

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Wednesday, the Washington Post reported: “For months, economists and government watchdogs have warned that the job-creation reports should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. . . . Trying to count the number of jobs created or saved may have been a fool’s errand that needlessly undermined the credibility of the overall reporting effort.”

No kidding. Now, the AP reports that the White House

has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money. Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It’s no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it’s a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.

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