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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/who-runs-gov-jon-traub/2011/05/10/AF50H0nG_story.html

Who Runs Gov: Jon Traub

When the Republicans captured the House majority in the 2010 midterm elections, Jon Traub became one of the most powerful staffers on Capitol Hill.

As Republican staff director for the House Ways and Means Committee, he is the top aide to Chairman Dave Camp (Mich.) at the panel, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. tax code, Medicare, Social Security and trade deals.

He’s also in a perfect spot to influence the all-important budget debate as congressional leaders and the White House hammer out a 2012 funding deal and try to find enough cuts to satisfy House Republicans, who say they won’t vote to raise the debt ceiling without them.

A former tax lobbyist with the Security Industry Association, Traub, who likes to golf and cook, became chief tax counsel to ranking Ways and Means Republican Jim McCrery (La.) when Republicans were in the minority. He got his feet wet in politics through a few Hill internships in the House and Senate.

Since joining Ways and Means, Traub cited as most satisfying his work on the 2009 GOP answer to President Obama’s stimulus measure, an alternative that Camp and other House Republican leaders said would deliver “twice the jobs at half the cost”; the GOP alternative to the 2010 health-care law; and the 2010 compromise that extended President George W. Bush’s tax cuts while extending unemployment benefits.

Though Camp doesn’t plan to turn the 2012 budget plan from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) into legislation this year, Traub said the committee will draft a bill that will tackle Medicare reform, “hopefully soon.”

Regarding health care, Traub said Camp will “continue to work on other measures” that would repeal specific pieces of the 2010 bill, which Camp opposed. He pointed to the repeal of the 1099 tax-reporting requirement as an example.

Also on the panel’s docket is tax-code reform. “Chairman Camp has made this a top priority,” Traub said. “But part of his challenge is to convince the administration to look beyond just a business-only approach that they have talked about and embrace broader reform to lower rates and provide simplification to families and small businesses, too.”

In His Own Words: “Entitlement savings should be considered as part of a plan to increase the debt limit.”

To read more profiles of Capitol Hill staffers and lawmakers, go to whorunsgov.com.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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