Bush Nominates 2 Sub-Cabinet Officials at Treasury, Pentagon

President Bush on Monday nominated Mark Weinberger to the top tax policy job at the Treasury Department and Paul Wolfowitz as deputy secretary of Defense.

The White House said in a statement that Weinberger, director of National Tax Practice at Ernst & Young, will become the assistant secretary of Treasury for tax policy.

A $1.6-trillion across-the-board tax cut was one of Bush’s main promises during the presidential campaign, and he will spend this week explaining his program to Congress.

Weinberger was appointed by President Clinton to the Social Security Advisory Board and was confirmed by the Senate in October.

Wolfowitz, who will have the No. 2 job at the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, has held senior posts at the Defense and State departments and has long been an intellectual conservative voice on U.S. arms and national security.

Wolfowitz is an expert on East Asia and the Middle East. He served as U.S. ambassador to Indonesia and then at the Pentagon during the 1991 Persian Gulf War under the former President Bush.

Wolfowitz has been dean of the private Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University since 1994. Both appointments must be confirmed by the Senate.