Obama picks Brian Deese as deputy budget director nominee President Obama said Monday he will nominate longtime economic aide Brian Deese, deputy director of the National Economic Council, as his next deputy budget director. The position would be a sigificant promotion for Deese, 35, who has played a key role in coordinating Obama's budget policy over the past several years as the president repeatedly clashed with Republicans over taxes and spending. He also has been an adviser on housing and manufacturing issues and early in the administration helped run the task force that organized the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. "From helping to navigate our rescue of a financial system on the brink of collapse to retooling a flatlining auto industry to crafting a policy to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable path, Brian Deese has proven an indispensable member of my economic team," Obama said in a statement Monday. He has a deep and intuitive understanding of economic and budgetary policy, and I am confident he will serve America well in this new role. The position, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, is subject to Senate confirmation. Also awaiting confirmation is budget director nominee Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who was deputy budget director in the Clinton administration. The deputy budget director position can launch Deese into a number of more senior administration posts. Deese, who graduated from Middlebury College and Yale Law School, follows in a long line of wunderkind economic policymakers who moved up the ranks of Democratic administrations, including his boss, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, who followed a trajectory similar to Deese's in the Clinton administration. Deese got his start at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and moved on to the Center for Global Development, where he wrote about foreign aid policy. He then joined the Center for American Progress when it was serving as a sort of Democratic shadow cabinet during the George W. Bush administration. He then went to work as economic policy director on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign before joining the Obama team. Former Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner praised Deese's nomination, calling him "one of the brightest economic minds in government today. He is thoughtful and disciplined, able to dig deep on a broad range of complex policy issues and quick when it counts. He is a superb talent with great judgment.