Obama’s economic inner circle and other key voices in the debate

These leaders have been a driving force behind the nation's economic policies as Washington aims to fix our troubled economy.

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Energy Secretary Steven Chu testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in May 2011. Chu testified about the Energy Department's proposed 2012 budget.

Chip Somodevilla / GETTY IMAGES

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was a key architect of the financial regulatory overhaul legislation that passed in July 2010 and is one of the president's most-trusted economic advisers. He is one of the last remaining members of Obama's core economic advisory team. Prior to his appointment to Obama's Cabinet in 2008, he served as the New York Federal Reserve Bank president. In that role, he worked closely with then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to devise responses to critical events of the financial crisis.

Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post

Alan Krueger is head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger has previously served as chief economist and assistant secretary of economic policy with the Treasury Department.

Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan (right) testified during a hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in March 2011 about the Obama Administration's report to the Congress on reforming America's housing finance market.

Alex Wong / GETTY IMAGES

President Obama launched in January a new economic advisory council focused on job creation and competitiveness and named General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt as its head. The council replaced the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which Obama created two years ago to help guide the administration's response to the recession.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

Jacob "Jack" Lew has been the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget since November. Lew, who replaced Peter Orszag, held the same job in the Clinton administration, and Obama has praised him for helping to balance the federal budget in the 1990s.

Ron Sachs / Via Bloomberg

Ben S. Bernanke has served as chairman of the Federal Reserve since 2006. Bernanke has won praise in some corners for the unprecedented actions taken to contain the recession but has also received criticism from lawmakers for not preventing the financial meltdown that dragged the country into a downturn. Under his leadership, the Fed has cut short-term interest rates essentially to zero, deployed nearly $2 trillion to support mortgage lending, created innovative programs to support lending and undertaken stress tests of large banks that helped instill confidence.

Joshua Roberts / Bloomberg

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, where she served until 2009, when President Obama chose her as Labor Secretary. She is the first Hispanic woman to serve in the U.S. Cabinet.

Bill O'Leary / WASHINGTON POST

On Aug. 1, Elizabeth Warren resigned as the assistant to the president and special adviser to the secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren came to Washington from Harvard Law School in 2008 to keep tabs on how funds in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were being used.

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

Gary Locke joined Obama's Cabinet as commerce secretary after two previous picks for the job, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson (D) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), withdrew themselves from consideration. Locke is a former governor of Washington. On May 26, President Obama chose Locke to become the U.S. ambassador to China. China, one of the U.S.'s largest trading partners, has been blamed by many Republican presidential candidate as a major source of our economic troubles.

Tatan Syuflana / AP

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, right, is a former mayor of Dallas. "Trade can help us create jobs at home and encourage development abroad," Kirk has said.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

In July, U.S. President Barack Obama announces his nomination of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, right, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama said his nomination of Cordray to head the bureau puts financial lenders on notice that the government will be looking out for "regular people."

Joshua Roberts / BLOOMBERG

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 27: Christian Slayton, 12 prays to a fallen soldiers memorial as motorcycles from the Rolling Thunder event pass by in Washington, DC on May 27, 2012. Slayton, who is from Raleigh, NC ran out to the makeshift memorial to say a prayer of thanks for all the veterans living and fallen. He said he wanted to thank them for letting us be free and able to have the rights that some countries never had. Riders from across the nation come together every year to ride from the Pentagon over to the National Mall as a rememberance those POW and MIAs in the Vietnam War. (Photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

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Business

Obama’s economic inner circle and other key voices in the debate

These leaders have been a driving force behind the nation's economic policies as Washington aims to fix our troubled economy.

Featured Photo Galleries