Panel gives nominee to be OMB director a light grilling

The nomination of Trade Representative Rob Portman to be Office of Management and Budget director appeared to be well on track on Thursday for approval by the Senate Budget Committee, as the former House lawmaker received the endorsement of both the top Republican and Democrat on the panel.

Portman nevertheless endured a polite but direct grilling from several of the committee's Democrats during a hearing on his nomination, particularly from Budget ranking member Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Conrad hammered away with criticism of the debt that has accumulated under Bush, brandishing a series of charts showing that the recovery from the recession of Bush's early years has been weaker in certain areas than previous recoveries.

Portman countered that earlier recoveries were more robust because the recessions were deeper, and he touted the administration's record of restraining discretionary spending while stressing the need for limiting entitlement growth.

Portman said the administration was making a "good faith effort" to establish an entitlement reform commission -- announced by Bush more than three months ago -- and to establish the prospective panel's scope. But he also said at one point with respect to entitlement reform "whether it's a commission or whether it is a group of you who with the right experience and clout ... [who] are willing to look at it, I think it's absolutely critical."

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Portman pledged to continue OMB's tight rein on the agencies' budgets, even that of USTR. "Every agency is going to have to figure out how to do as much as they possibly can with limited resources," he said.

Portman pledged to the committee to work closely with lawmakers, a strategy that would maintain the collegiality established by former OMB Director Joshua Bolten, who followed the more combative Mitch Daniels, Bush's first OMB director.

"This is maybe a great fault of mine, but I like members of Congress," he told reporters. Portman, who remains the country's top trade negotiator pending his confirmation as OMB director, told reporters that "significant progress" had been made this week in talks with Vietnam concerning a World Trade Organization accession agreement.

He said progress had been made on difficult issues such as textiles. "I'm hopeful that that is one that we can finish soon," he said of the agreement. Portman continued to find cause for optimism about the beleaguered Doha round of talks, saying many countries were now gazing at the looming prospect of failure and not liking what they see.