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9:15- 10:30 Salon C
Recent deficit projections from the CBO suggest that under current policies triple-digit deficits will be with us through the end of the decade. Hear two respected budget experts share their perspectives on where the deficit is headed and what hard choices may be made to rein in the deficit.
Joseph Minarik's slides (PDF 36 K)
Committee for Economic Development Federal Budget Page
Chris P. Varvares, President, Macroeconomic Advisers, moderator
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Director
Congressional Budget Office
Douglas Holtz-Eakin is the sixth Director of the Congressional Budget Office,
where he was appointed for a four-year term beginning February 3, 2003. Dr.
Holtz-Eakin previously served for 18 months as Chief Economist for the President's
Council of Economic Advisers, where he also served as Senior Staff Economist
in 1989 and 1990.
Dr. Holtz-Eakin is Trustee Professor of Economics at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, where he has served as Chairman of the Department of Economics and Associate Director of the Center for Policy Research. He also has served as editor of the National Tax Journal, associate editor of the Journal of Human Resources, and as a member of the editorial board for Economics and Politics, Journal of Sports Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, and Public Works Management and Policy.
In the past, he has held academic appointments at Columbia University and Princeton University. Since 1985 he has been a faculty research fellow and research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research. From 1996 to 1998 he served as a member of the Economics Advisory Panel to the National Science Foundation. He also has worked as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He has been a consultant to the New Jersey State and Local Expenditure and Revenue Policy Commission, the State of Arizona Joint Select Committee on State Revenues and Expenditures, and the New York State Office for the Aging. He has served as a member of the Board of Economic Advisers for the Ways and Means Committee, as well as the Executive Director, Tax Study Commission, New York State Assembly.
Dr. Holtz-Eakin has a long-standing and broad interest in the economics of public policy. He has studied the role of federal taxes in home ownership, the contribution of inventories to the business cycle, and a wide variety of topics in state and local government finance. Much of his research has centered on the economics of fundamental tax reform, productivity effects of public infrastructure; income mobility in the United States; and the role of families, capital markets, health insurance, and tax policy in the start-up and survival of entrepreneurial ventures.
Joseph Minarik
Senior Vice President and Director of Research
Committee for Economic Development
Joseph J. Minarik has been perhaps uniquely involved in the major economic policy decisions of the last two decades.
From 1981 to 1986, Dr. Minarik was closely associated with Senator Bill Bradley and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt in their effort to reform the Federal income tax. He was the source of many of the original ideas in their bill, “The Fair Tax Act,” including deficit-neutral reductions of tax rates for businesses as well as individuals, to reduce economic distortions and increase efficiency and productivity. 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. His role is described in Timothy J. Conlan, Margaret T. Wrightson and David R. Beam, Taxing Choices (Congressional Quarterly Press, 1990), and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Alan S. Murray, Showdown at Gucci Gulch: Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform (Random House, 1987).
In 1991 and 1992, Dr. Minarik served as Executive Director for Policy and Chief Economist of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, for then-Chairman Leon E. Panetta. He had lead responsibility in the preparation of “Restoring America's Future: “ which was Chairman Panetta's argument for a multi-year program to eliminate the Federal budget deficit. 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, and worked on the formulation and adoption of President Bill Clinton's 1993 economic program. When the Federal budget became a leading issue in 1995 and 1996, Dr. Minarik worked closely with then-Chief of Staff Panetta and new OMB Director Alice M. Rivlin in the formulation of the Administration's program to eliminate the budget deficit, which evolved into the bipartisan balanced budget agreement of 1997.
Dr. Minarik has extensive experience in both economic research and public service. As an academic researcher, he has investigated topics such as poverty, income security policy, the distribution of income, the consequences of inflation, fiscal policy, and tax policy, with publications on the tax treatment of capital gains, indexation, and income tax design.
Before his work at the House Budget Committee, Dr. Minarik served as the Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress, was a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute, served as Deputy Assistant Director of the Tax Analysis Division of the Congressional Budget Office, and was a Research Associate in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. While at CBO, he served on assignment as tax economist for the Senate Budget Committee for Senator Pete Domenici. In 1986, Dr. Minarik was named one of the "150 Who Make a Difference" — persons not in the Federal government who most affect what the government does — by the magazine National Journal .
Dr. Minarik received three graduate degrees in economics from Yale University, with his Ph.D. in 1974. He received his B.A. in economics from Georgetown University in 1971.
