WASHINGTON (AP) — Few Democrats have found ways to negotiate with Republicans as well as Shalanda Young — whose work as White House budget director prevented several potential economic crises from erupting.
It brokered a deal for 2023 to prevent the government from defaulting on its debts. She worked to prevent a government shutdown, maintain disaster relief, and address a baby formula shortage. She helped save aid to Ukraine with a loan based on frozen Russian assets.
Young may have been the most powerful low-profile figure in the Biden administration. And while President Joe Biden leaves office with a dismal approval rating and a mixed legacy, she leaves office as director of the Office of Management and Budget with a record of more wins than losses.
Her recipe for success: a mix of understanding the mysteries of federal spending, reading current politics and convincing reluctant lawmakers that compromise is in their interest.
“Because of her skills, her intelligence and her wicked sense of humor, she was a tremendous challenge to negotiate with,” said former Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry. “I mean that as the highest compliment.”
Sitting on a couch in her high-ceilinged office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Young attributed her success to “giving Republicans who want to do the right thing the political space to do it.”
Now the recent Trump administration faces some of the same vexing problems: raising the debt limit, preparing a budget and figuring out how to extend the roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts that are set to expire after this year while also making the expected one Budget deficit can contain $1.9 trillion.
Trump has nominated his former budget director, Russell Vought, to return to the post. With Republicans controlling the House and Senate, Vought won’t necessarily need Young’s nimble political skills. At his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, he declined to say whether he would allow remaining Ukraine aid to be spent as Congress wishes.
Democrats, for their part, will no longer have Young as a deal broker. At 47, Young, whose judgment has been honed by nearly 15 years as a House Budget Committee staffer, doesn’t feel the need to sugarcoat the tough bill.
She figured out how to reconcile conflicting issues created by the mix of challenging numbers and toxic partisanship. She also did it while juggling the challenge of being a single mother to her daughter Charlie, 3 – which meant her evening phone calls with lawmakers, Cabinet officials and others were often accompanied by cooing and crying.
“To talk to me is to know that I have a child,” Young said.
She had decided to undergo in vitro fertilization treatment because she was convinced that a woman could assume both the highest-ranking government positions and handle the demanding work of parenthood.
It meant a messy life with little sleep, stressful phone calls and only four weeks of maternity leave.
“I didn’t want to make a choice. I wanted the job and wanted at least the chance to become a parent, and both had a high chance of failure,” Young said. “I’m glad I chose chaos.”
The process of parenthood has changed her too. She wondered how parents with fewer resources could manage it, and concluded that people who work 40 hours a week should be able to afford adequate child care and health care.
Young credits much of her approach to growing up in Clinton, Louisiana, where her grandmother came out of retirement to serve as her middle school basketball coach. She emphasized to her that she had to live as a role model: “You don’t know which young girl is watching you. So you always have to put your best foot forward. Be a leader on this team.”
That was the guide to how she moves forward with a deal. She allowed lawmakers, colleagues and even the president to be human. While negotiating funding for Ukraine, she thought about visiting that country as a congressional staffer and visiting a children’s center there, where she played with the children.
When negotiations to raise the debt ceiling in 2023 failed, she worried about a growing number of Republicans who appeared to view default as an acceptable risk. But she says there is still enough of a ruling majority that understands the threat to the nation and its voters.
The talks had become a circus on Capitol Hill, with reporters following the negotiators, so she moved the negotiations to the Office of Management and Budget’s conference room with its relative privacy on the White House campus. She said she needs to get the right Republicans like McHenry in the room.
After agreeing on the top numbers, Republicans said they needed to be able to turn to their fellow lawmakers with work requirements for people receiving food assistance. Young agreed to their terms, knowing that some would lose benefits as a result.
To ultimately seal the deal, Young had to bring Biden back from a trip abroad in Asia. At their last meeting on a Friday in May, Young was confident she had a deal. But she had to fly to New Orleans to give a commencement speech at Xavier University. Her final phone calls ended at 3 a.m. and she then spent Saturday morning on the phone with Biden discussing the deal.
“I’m glad I went,” she said of the speech, but then added with a laugh, “That weekend almost killed me.”
Young, for her part, admitted that she was most nervous about presenting the deal to Democratic lawmakers because she feared they would rip her head off over the resulting compromise.
Instead, she received a standing ovation from the audience.
“I cried like a baby,” she said.
Young has a lifetime position lined up after the White House, but it has not yet been announced. She said she was excited about the idea of living with just a cell phone.
