President-elect Donald Trump picked South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney as his budget director Friday, an anti-establishment Republican known as a staunch advocate for spending cuts.
As Office of Management and Budget director, Mulvaney would be responsible for helping guide Trump’s budget through the Republican-controlled Congress, including his promised Obamacare repeal, tax cuts and infrastructure spending.
“Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink,” Trump said in a statement announcing his choice.
Mulvaney was elected to the House during the Tea Party wave of 2010, and ran on a platform of responsible spending. Once in Congress, he helped found the Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative anti-establishment Republicans who led the push to get former House Speaker John Boehner to resign, and established himself as an outspoken budget hawk. He opposed his own party’s budget and was one of a few dozen Republicans who refused to back the deal to raise the debt limit.
Mulvaney called it a “great honor” to be selected for the role in a statement Friday, saying the Trump administration will restore budgetary and fiscal “sanity” in Washington by forcing disciplined spending decisions and creating worker-friendly policies.
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