The Hill News

A liberal group that has sparred with the White House slammed Vice President Biden's pick for chief of staff.

A co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) expressed disappointment with Biden's choice of Bruce Reed, most recently the executive director of President Obama's fiscal commission, for the top staff job in the vice president's office.

{mosads}"It's unfortunate that this administration keeps gravitating toward individuals who push policies that benefit big corporations over regular Americans," said Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of the PCCC.

Progressives have openly griped about the choices made to fill some open administration spots. Among them, William Daley, a former bank executive who is now the president's chief of staff, has been criticized for having close ties to the business community.

Liberals fear the picks represent a shift to the political center by the administration in the aftermath of ! the "shellacking" Democrats received in the 2010 elections. The tax-cut compromise Obama cut with congressional Republicans in the lame-duck Congress is seen as the best evidence so far of this shift.

Biden's pick of Reed could play into the debate over spending and the budget that's expected to dominate Congress in the first few months of this year.

"Bruce Reed most recently worked as executive director of the Bowles-Simpson Commission, a widely discredited commission that advocates cutting Social Security and raising the retirement age," Taylor said. "Americans want less â€" not more â€" of this out-of-touch thinking in the White House, and appointments like this will only lead to policies that hurt middle-class families and hurt Democrats in 2012."