For reasons that are all tangled up with diversity politics and jockeying for power within the administration, Team Biden can’t quite bring itself to green-light the appointment of Shalanda Young to head the Office of Management and Budget.

Young, who is African American, was confirmed by the Senate as deputy director more than two weeks ago, 63-37, and is functioning as acting director while the White House dithers on the top job.

Young, as Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, has won praise from both parties. She has the strong support of the congressional leadership and the Black Caucus.

So what’s the holdup? You may recall that Biden’s first choice for OMB director, Neera Tanden, had to withdraw because key senators from both parties refused to support her. That left Asian-American groups, and senators such as Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, unhappy at the relative paucity of Asian Americans in Biden’s cabinet.

"I realize that we have Katherine Tai [at USTR]," Hirono complained at a virtual White House retreat, "but I don't think the trade representative is what the community understands as a Cabinet-level (position)."

But in the meantime, despite the absence of a confirmed OMB director, trillion-dollar budget decisions are being made, and not at OMB. As Young’s fate is left hanging, other White House power centers are evidently happy not to have to run the OMB gauntlet.

It’s a far cry from the Clinton-Obama era, when OMB under such budget hawks as Alice Rivlin, Jack Lew, and Peter Orszag were in a major power position. Given that OMB tends to attract fiscal conservatives, its demotion is fine with me.

And speaking of USTR, a similar fate may befall that agency. The aforementioned Katherine Tai has not emerged as a major power player. As I reported in this space on Wednesday, Biden’s people leaked a truly bizarre likely appointment of corporate Democrat and Biden old hand Sarah Bianchi as deputy U.S. trade rep in charge of China policy. Problem is … Bianchi has scant background on China.

It kind of makes you think that the key power players, National-Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in the case of China policy, and National Economic Council director Brian Deese in the case of spending initiatives, are just as happy to have these once powerful agencies demoted to the second tier.

That seems fine in the case of OMB. But on China, trade policy is really complicated. It makes sense to have Sullivan make the big strategic calls on how geopolitical and industrial goals trade off. But it still takes a competent trade agency to carry the policy out.