Congressional Budget Office Director Peter R. Orszag has been approached by President-elect Barack Obama ’s transition team about becoming Office of Management and Budget director in the new administration and is the leading candidate for the job, sources on and off Capitol Hill said Wednesday.

Orszag, like all candidates for posts in the Obama administration, would have to go through a thorough vetting process before he would be nominated. The transition team press office said it does not comment on potential appointments.

Orszag has been CBO director since January 2007 and is halfway through a four-year term. During his almost two years at CBO he has won the respect of Republicans as well as Democrats. CBO is a non-partisan office that helps Congress assemble its annual budget resolution, provides analysis of economic and budget policies and “scores,” or estimates, the cost of legislation.

Orszag, 39, is a veteran of the Clinton White House, where he was an economist for both the National Economic Council and Council of Economic Advisers. Before becoming CBO director he was head of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank seen as moderate to liberal.

The next OMB director will have a difficult job, with economists projecting a fiscal 2009 budget deficit in the $1 trillion range because of the sagging economy. Budget analysts warn that the long-term outlook is bleak because of the strain rising health care costs and the aging baby boom generation will put on spending for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

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