Brian Deese

Why He Matters

All administrations have young, up-and-coming stars, and one of those people in the Obama White House is the little-known, the thirtysomething Deese.

In January 2011, new White House chief of staff William Daley named Deese deputy director of the National Economic Council and special assistant to the president.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (January 2009 to January 2011); Senior analyst at the Center of American Progress; Researcher at the Center for Global Development
Hometown: Belmont, Mass.
Alma Mater: Middlebury College, 2000

DC Office: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NWWashington, DC 20500
Web site

Path to Power

Growing up in Belmont, Mass., Deese's father was a professor of political science at Boston College while his mother worked on renewable energies as an engineer. Deese went to Middlebury College in Vermont for his undergraduate work. While attending school, he also hosted a college radio-show called "Bedknobs and Beatniks," which was described as a mix of news, music and banter.

After graduating in 2000, Deese joined the Washington think-tank Center for Global Development where he worked on foreign aid issues, including debt relief for Africa. He impressed CGD creator Nancy Birdsall, and joined her on projects. But after a few years, Deese wanted to delve into domestic issues and moved to the Washington think-tank CAP as an assistant to Sperling.

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The Issues

After the 2008 election ended, Deese needed to get to Washington from Chicago. He couldn't book a flight that would accommodate his dog, so he decided to drive the 600-plus miles from Chicago to reach the nation's capital. Along the way, Deese stopped in Lordstown, Ohio, to get some shut-eye. He settled in the parking lot of a GM plant for the night, which is ironic since he has had a hand in ushering the American icon into bankruptcy.

Upon arriving in D.C., Deese quickly got to work evaluating Chrysler and GM's business models. "There was a time between Nov. 4 [2008] and mid-February [2009] when I was the only full-time member of the auto task force," Deese told the New York Times. "It was a little scary."

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In February 2009, just before GM and Chrysler submitted proposals to the administration that detailed plans for future viability, Obama named other members of the Auto Task Force. The group was tasked with evaluating GM and Chrysler's proposals, and making recommendations for ways to proceed. A month later, Obama announced that the task force would give Chrysler 30 days to structure a deal with Fiat SpA or file for bankruptcy. GM was given 60 days to submit a new proposal.

After the 30 days passed, Chrysler and Fiat had a deal on the table that would allow Fiat to purchase most of Chrysler, but not all of the company. The administration was split on whether to allow the merger to go through or to liquidate the car company. Deese provided the analysis that swayed everyone's opinion on Chrysler's importance to the U.S. economy. Deese showed that if Chrysler failed, overall Medicaid costs, unemployment insurance and municipal bankruptcies would significantly increase. In June 2009, the administration sided with Deese, signing off on the deal between Fiat and Chrysler.

GM, on the other hand, has a longer restructuring process ahead. In June 2009, the company entered into bankruptcy protection. The Treasury will provide up to $30 billion in additional financing, taking 60 percent ownership of the Detroit icon. GM will also cut manufacturing at 14 U.S. factories.

Outsourcing

Prior to attending law school, Deese spent some time at CAP, the liberal Washington think tank founded by John D. Podesta that has become a farm team for the Obama administration. While there, he wrote a few articles about the U.S. economy, debt relief for poor countries and the effects of outsourcing on the U.S. economy. In October 2004, Deese and co-author John Lyman penned a policy report titled "Offshoring and the Global Economy: A Progressive Agenda," which offered ways to encourage job growth in America while U.S. jobs continued to move overseas.

"Most cite low labor costs and rising education levels of workers across the globe as the reasons that American companies are hiring more and more overseas service workers," wrote Deese and Lyman. "And although there is no doubt that this argument has some validity, it misses the major point: the American economy is not as competitive as it once was."

The authors give suggestions on short-term ways to address outsourcing and long-term solutions to advance America's ability to compete with overseas companies. One of the short-term goals is to provide U.S. workers a "universal assistance system."

According to the report, such a system includes providing temporary health-care for laid- off workers and creating wage insurance that provides "50 percent of a worker's wage difference when he or she lost a job and took a new one for less pay." The other aspect of this assistance system is for Congress to increase funds to encourage lifelong learning and allow the worker to undergo retraining before lay-offs occur.

Deese and Lyman suggested long-term policy goals, including providing universal health care, extending tax credits for efficient vehicles and modernizing the U.S. education system.

The Network

Prior to his government work, Deese served as an assistant to NEC Director Gene Sperling while Sperling worked at CAP. Sperling servef in the Treasury Department as Secretary Timothy Geithner's adviser before being named as Obama's second NEC director in January 2011.

Deese served on the Auto Task Force, alongside a variety of other Obama officials. These include Geithner and ex-Treasury adviser Steven Rattner. Deese also worked in the White House NEC offices. His office sat next to ex-NEC Director Lawrence H. Summers, and Deese works with Deputy NEC Director Jason Furman and former deputy Diana Farrell.

Campaign Contributions

Deese has never donated to a campaign or political action committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Additional Resources