Stein is a Democrat and an economist and former president of the American Finance Association.

Powell is a Republican who was undersecretary of domestic finance in the George H. W. Bush administration. Powell, currently a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington where he focuses on federal and state fiscal issues, from 1997 through 2005 was a partner at Carlyle Group, where he founded and led the industrial group within the U.S. buyout fund. The White House said he worked for many years prior to that as a lawyer and investment banker in New York.

The president has had mixed success in his nominations to the Federal Reserve. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., blocked the president's appointment of Nobel-winning economist Peter Diamond, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.

Obama's other picks for the Fed, Janet Yellen, Sarah Bloom Raskin and the renomination of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, won confirmation.