WASHINGTON — Few Democrats found ways to negotiate with Republicans quite like Shalanda Young — whose work as White House budget director stopped several potential economic crises from erupting.
She brokered a 2023 deal to stop the government from defaulting on its debt. She worked to keep the government from shutting down, preserve disaster relief and address a baby formula shortage. She helped save aid to Ukraine with a loan based on frozen Russian assets.
Young may have been the most powerful low-profile person in the Biden administration. And while President Joe Biden leaves office with a dismal approval rating and a mixed legacy, she departs as the director of the Office of Management and Budget with a record with more wins than losses.
Her formula for success: a blend of understanding the arcana of federal spending, reading the politics of the moment, and convincing reluctant lawmakers that compromise was in their interest.
“She was an enormous challenge to negotiate with because of her skills, her intelligence and her wicked sense of humor,” said former Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry. “I mean that as the highest of compliments.”
Sitting on a couch in her high-ceilinged office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Young attributed her success to “giving Republicans who want to do the right thing the political space to do that.”
Now, the incoming Trump administration will face some of the same vexing issues: raising the debt limit, preparing a budget and figuring out how to extend roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts set to expire after this year while also taming a budget deficit expected to be $1.9 trillion.
Trump has nominated his previous budget director Russell Vought to return to the post. With Republicans controlling the House and Senate, Vought won’t necessarily need Young’s nimble political skills. At his confirmation hearing Wednesday, he declined to say whether he would allow the remaining Ukraine aid to be spent in accordance with Congress’ wishes.
For their part, Democrats will no longer have Young as a deal broker. At 47, Young, whose judgment was honed by nearly 15 years as a House Appropriations Committee staffer, feels no need to sugarcoat the hard math.
She figured out how to balance conflicting issues caused by the mix of challenging numbers and toxic partisanship. She also did it while juggling the challenge of being a single parent to her daughter, Charlie, 3 — meaning that her evening phone calls with lawmakers, cabinet officials and others often had the soundtrack of cooing and crying.
“To talk to me is to know I have a child,” Young said.
She had decided to undergo in vitro fertilization treatments, believing that a woman could take the most high-powered of government jobs as well as handle the demanding work of parenthood.
It meant a messy existence of little sleep, high-pressure phone calls and only four weeks of maternity leave.
“I didn’t want to make a choice. I wanted the job and I wanted to at least have a shot at being a parent, and both had a high likelihood of failure,” Young said. “I’m glad I chose chaos.”
The process of parenthood also changed her. She wondered how parents with fewer resources could make it, and concluded that people working 40 hours a week ought to be able to afford decent child care and health care.
Young sees much of her approach stemming from how she grew up in Clinton, Louisiana, where her grandmother came out of retirement to be her middle school basketball coach. She stressed to her that she needed to live as a role model would: “You don’t know what young girl is watching you. So you are always to be on your best behavior. Be a leader of this team.”
That guided how she drives a deal. She let lawmakers, colleagues and even the president be human. When she negotiated on Ukraine funding, she thought about visiting that country as a congressional staffer and her trip to a child center there, where she played with the kids.
When negotiations were faltering in 2023 to raise the debt ceiling, she worried about a growing number of Republicans who seemed to view default as an acceptable risk. But she says there is still enough of a governing majority who understood the threat to the nation and their constituents.
The talks had become a circus on Capitol Hill, with reporters chasing the negotiators, so she moved negotiations to the Office of Management and Budget conference room with its relative privacy on the White House campus. She said she needed to get the right Republicans, such as McHenry, in the room.
After agreeing on top-line numbers, Republicans said they needed to be able to go to their fellow lawmakers with work requirements on people who receive food aid. Young agreed to their terms, knowing some would lose benefits.
To ultimately settle the deal, Young needed to bring Biden back from a foreign trip in Asia. At their final meeting on a May Friday, Young felt confident she had a deal. But she needed to fly to New Orleans to deliver a commencement speech at Xavier University. Her final phone calls ended at 3 a.m. and she then spent Saturday morning on the phone with Biden going over the deal.
“I’m glad I went,” she said of the speech, but then added with laughter, “That weekend almost killed me.”
For her part, Young admitted she was most nervous to present the deal to Democratic lawmakers, scared that they might tear her head off for the resulting compromise.
Instead, she got a standing ovation from the room.
“I cried like a baby,” she said.
Young has a position lined up for life after the White House, but it hasn’t been announced yet. She said she’s looking forward to the idea of living with just one cellphone.
