Prior to joining Brookings, Dr. Sawhill was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute.
She also served as an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995,
where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government,
accounting for one third of the federal budget.
In addition,
she has authored or edited numerous books and articles including Creating an Opportunity Society
with Ron Haskins; Restoring
Fiscal Sanity 2005: Meeting the Long-Run Challenge and Restoring Fiscal Sanity:
How to Balance the Budget, both with Alice Rivlin;
One Percent for the Kids: New Policies, Brighter
Futures for America’s Children; Welfare Reform
and Beyond: The Future of the Safety Net; Updating
America’s Social Contract: Economic Growth and Opportunity in the New Century; Getting Ahead: Economic and Social
Mobility in America; and Challenge to Leadership: Economic and Social Issues for the Next Decade
. Her research has spanned a wide array
of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth,
poverty and inequality, welfare reform, the well-being of children, and
changes in the family.
Dr. Sawhill helped to found, and now serves as President of the
board of, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen
Pregnancy, a nonprofit organization devoted to reducing teen pregnancy in the United States.
She has been a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law School, Director of the National Commission for
Employment Policy, and President of the
Association for Public Policy Analysis and
Management. She also serves on a number of boards. She attended Wellesley College and received her
Ph.D. from New York University in 1968.
http://www.brookings.edu/experts/sawhilli.aspx
Brian M. Riedl
Senior Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation
Brian Riedl is The Heritage Foundation's lead budget analyst and has built a solid reputation
for interpreting, explaining and reforming the often arcane realm of federal budget policy.
Indeed, much of the current backlash against runaway federal spending can be attributed to Riedl's work. As far back as 2002 and 2003, his writings exposed the beginnings of a federal spending spree that was pushing real federal spending to more than $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II.
In December 2003, Riedl – Heritage's Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Affairs – quickly revealed the omnibus spending bill's 8,000 pork projects, including funding for the Please Touch Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2006, the Senate increased President George W. Bush's war funding bill with $14 billion in unrelated domestic spending. Riedl's writings exposing this irresponsible spending, including Mississippi's "railroad to nowhere" received extensive media coverage, and the ensuing public backlash forced Congress to strip the $14 billion from the bill.
Riedl's budget research has been featured in front-page stories and editorials in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. He has discussed budget policy on NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. He also participates in the bipartisan "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," which holds town hall meetings across America focusing on the looming crisis in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
In addition to overall spending trends, Riedl targeted the 2002 farm bill, which distributed most of its $180 billion bounty to wealthy agri-businesses. In an op-ed essay published in dozens of newspapers nationwide, Riedl noted that "farm subsidies are America's largest and most expensive corporate welfare program." So effective were his criticisms that, weeks after the farm bill was enacted, the U.S. Agriculture Department felt it necessary to publish a 12-page report that tried to address many of the concerns Riedl had raised.
Riedl also contributes to Heritage's welfare research. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, Riedl wrote that "Welfare recipients assigned to immediate work see their earnings increase more than twice as fast over the following five years as those first placed in education-based programs." In another study, he debunked the myth of a child care crisis by showing that funding has more than tripled since 1996, leaving very few truly needy families without access to child care assistance.
Before coming to Heritage in 2001, Riedl worked for then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, former Rep. Mark Green (R-WI)., and the Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly. Riedl holds a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin, and a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University.
http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/BrianRiedl.cfm
Joseph J. Minarik
Senior Vice President and Director of Research
Committee for Economic Development
Dr. Minarik
leads CED’s policy research projects on issues
including economy and the federal budget, globalization, trade, early childhood
education, campaign finance reform, and health care.
From 1981 to 1986, Dr. Minarik worked closely with
Congressional Democrats, including Senator Bill Bradley, on efforts to reform
the federal income tax. Dr. Minarik published Making
Tax Choices (Urban Institute Press, 1985) and many articles on this issue,
testified before the Congress on numerous occasions, served on the faculty of
the two retreats of the House Ways & Means Committee, and worked informally
with policymakers on the evolution of the legislation.
In 1991-92, Dr. Minarik served as executive director
for policy and chief economist of the Budget Committee of the House of
Representatives under Chairman Leon E. Panetta. When Chairman Panetta was
nominated as Director of the Office of Management and Budget in 1993, Dr. Minarik became OMB’s associate director for economic
policy. He worked on the formulation and adoption of President Bill Clinton’s
1993 economic program. When the Federal budget became a leading issue in
1995-96, Dr. Minarik worked with then-White House
Chief of Staff Panetta and new OMB Director Alice M. Rivlin
to formulate the Administration’s program to eliminate the budget deficit,
which evolved into the bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of 1997. From 2001-05 he
served as policy director and chief economist for the House Budget Committee.
He joined CED in 2005.
Dr. Minarik received three graduate degrees in
economics from Yale
University, earning his
Ph.D. in 1974. He has a B.A. in economics from Georgetown University.
http://www.ced.org/experts/researchers
William Gale
Co-Director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, The Brookings Institution
William Gale is the Arjay
and Frances Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy in the Economic Studies Program
at Brookings. His research focuses on tax policy, fiscal policy, pensions and saving
behavior. He is co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of
the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. He is also director of the Retirement Security
Project, an initiative supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, in
partnership with Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and
Brookings.
From 2006 to 2009, he served as a Vice President
Brookings and Director of the Economic Studies Program.
Prior to
joining Brookings in 1992, he was an assistant professor in the Department of
Economics at the University
of California, Los Angeles, and a senior staff economist for
the Council of Economic Advisers under
President George H.W. Bush.
He is the
co-editor of several books, including Automatic: Changing the Way America Saves (Brookings 2009);
Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement
Security in America (Century Foundation, 2006);
The Evolving Pension System: Trends,
Effects, and Proposals for Reform (Brookings, 2005);
Private Pensions and Public Policy (Brookings, 2004); Rethinking Estate
and Gift Taxation (Brookings,
2001), and Economic Effects of Fundamental Tax Reform (Brookings, 1996).
His research
has been published in several scholarly journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of
Political Economy, and Quarterly
Journal of Economics. He has also written extensively in policy-related publications and newspapers.
Gale has
served on advisory boards for the Government Accountability Office, the
Internal Revenue Service, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the
Board of the Center on Federal Financial Institutions and on
editorial boards for several academic journals.
Gale attended Duke University
and the London School of Economics and received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1987.
http://www.brookings.edu/experts/galew.aspx
Diane Lim Rogers
Chief Economist
The Concord Coalition
Diane Lim Rogers joined the Concord
Coalition in April 2008 as the organization’s first Chief Economist as well as
their first "blogger" (EconomistMom.com).
At Concord she
writes issue briefs, gives speeches, and provides general expertise on the
economic effects of federal budget and tax policy. She was previously Chief
Economist for the House Budget Committee from January 2007 to April 2008, where
she served Chairman John Spratt and other Democratic members of the Committee.
In 2006 she was Research Director of the Budgeting for National Priorities
project at the Brookings Institution. While at Brookings she published several
opinion pieces emphasizing the importance of fiscal responsibility and a paper
on “Reducing the Deficit through Better Tax Policy,” and she also participated
in the Concord Coalition’s "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour."
From 2004 to 2006 Dr. Rogers served as
Chief Economist for the House Ways
and Means Committee Democrats, and prior to that was a Principal Economist
covering tax and budget policies for the Joint Economic Committee Democrats.
She was a Senior Economist on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers
during the last year of the Clinton Administration and first 100 days of the
Bush Administration, and in President Clinton’s final Economic Report of the President
(2001) drafted the sections extolling the merits of fiscal discipline. Dr.
Rogers has also worked at the Urban Institute and the Congressional Budget
Office, and was Assistant Professor of Economics at Penn State University.
Throughout her career, Dr. Rogers’
research has focused on the behavioral, distributional, and macroeconomic
effects of U.S.
fiscal policies. She continues to teach as an Adjunct Professor for the School of Public Policy
and Public Administration at George
Washington University
.
Dr. Rogers received her B.A. in Economics
from the University of Michigan in 1983, her M.A. from Brown
University in 1984, and her Ph.D. from
the University of
Virginia in 1991. But
more notably, she is the proud mother of four—three daughters and a son.
http://www.concordcoalition.org/about-us/national-staff/drogers
The Hon. David M. Walker
President and CEO
Peter G. Peterson Foundation
As President and CEO of the Foundation,
Dave is now free to do what he wasn't able to do while running the Government
Accountability Office: advocate for specific solutions, work proactively with
grantees and other partners to build strong coalitions, and encourage and
engage in grassroots efforts to bring pressure on Washington to act.
As Comptroller General of the United States
and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008,
spanning both Democratic and Republican administrations, Dave served as the
federal government's chief auditor. Appointed by President Bill Clinton and
confirmed unanimously by the US Senate, he was an outspoken, nonpartisan
advocate for addressing the major fiscal and other sustainability challenges
facing the country. He also enacted transformational reforms at the agency and
within the accountability profession.
Prior to his appointment to run the GAO,
Dave served as a partner and global managing director of Arthur Andersen LLP
and in several government leadership positions, including as a Public Trustee
for Social Security and Medicare from 1990 to 1995 and as Assistant Secretary
of Labor for Pension and Welfare Benefit Programs during the Reagan
administration.
Although no longer the US government's
chief auditor, Dave continues to serve as a global accountability expert as
chairman of the United Nations Independent Audit Advisory Committee. He also
serves on the boards of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the
Partnership for Public Service. He has authored two books, is a regular
commentator, and is the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A.,
which arrives in theatres around the country in August 2008.
Dave holds a B.S. in accounting from Jacksonville University,
a Senior Management in Government Certificate in public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of
Government, and several honorary doctorate degrees. He has won numerous
leadership and other awards during his career. He and his wife Mary live in Alexandria, VA
and have two children and three grandchildren.
http://www.pgpf.org/about/leadership/dmw/
Donald Marron
Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute
Marron Economics, LLC
Mr. Marron’s is spending the 2009-2010 academic year as a visiting professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in Washington DC, where
he is teaching microeconomics and public finance.
Mr. Marron is also president of Marron Economics, LLC, through which he does consulting and public speaking on economic, budget, and financial issues.
Mr. Marron writes the economics and finance blog dmarron.com.
From 2002 to early 2009, Marron served in various senior positions in the White House and Congress including:
- Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)
- Acting Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
- Executive Director of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee (JEC)
Before his government service, Marron had a varied career as a professor, consultant, and entrepreneur. In the mid-1990s,
he taught economics and finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
He then spent about a year-and-a-half managing large antitrust cases (e.g., Pepsi vs. Coke) at Charles River Associates in Washington, DC. After that,
Marron took the plunge into the world of new ventures, serving as Chief Financial Officer of a health care software start-up in Austin, TX. After that fascinating experience,
he started his career in public service.
Mr. Marron received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
his B.A. in Mathematics at Harvard.
http://dmarron.com/about/
David D. Burstein
Executive Director and Founder
18 in 08
David, 19, is the Director and Producer of “18 in ‘08.” The film aimed is the product
of two years traveling the country, interviewing over 60 Congressmen, Senators,
presidential candidates, policy makers, activists…young and old. David has
devoted much of his time, efforts, and energy throughout his life to youth
empowerment and political involvement. In 2003, David worked with a group of
fellow students to create the highly successful Westport Youth Film Festival.
The festival has since become the world’s premiere film festival run by high
school students for high school students, for which David served as Director
until leaving high school. In May of 2005, David was appointed to serve on the
Weston Commission for Children and Youth, responsible for advising the Town of Weston on issues and
activities related to students and children. David has also done extensive work
with local civic and community based boards and organizations in Connecticut and New
York. He has also won numerous awards for his work in
fiction and journalistic writing as well as theater arts. He is a student at Haverford
