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Session 4: Restoring Fiscal Sanity
Panelists will discuss the desirability of, and options for reigning in government spending and the federal budget deficit.
Presentations
Links of Interest
Isabel Sawhill's home page at Brookings
Kevin Hasset's home page at AEI
Speakers
Donald B. Marron
Acting Director
Congressional Budget Office
Donald B. Marron became CBO's Deputy Director in October 2005 and began serving as Acting Director as of December 30. Previously, Dr. Marron served as Chief Economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers. In that capacity, he analyzed a broad range of fiscal, regulatory, and macroeconomic policies and directed a team that monitored the state of the economy and developed economic forecasts.
Prior to holding that post, Dr. Marron was the Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Congress's Joint Economic Committee, where he led a team that advised Members of Congress and Congressional staff about the performance of the economy, fiscal policy challenges, and the impacts of legislative proposals.
Before his government service, Dr. Marron was chief financial officer of a medical software start-up in Austin, Texas, and a principal and senior associate with the Washington, D.C., office of Charles River Associates, where he provided business consulting and litigation support to companies in a variety of industries. He also served as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business from 1994 to 1998, where he taught courses in microeconomics, entrepreneurial finance and private equity, and environmental policy.
Dr. Marron has published articles on a broad range of topics, including tax policy, intellectual property, and energy and environmental policy.
Isabel Sawhill
Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution
Isabel V. Sawhill is a Senior Fellow and Vice President & Director of Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution. 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 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 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.
Kevin A. Hassett
Director, Economic Policy Studies
American Enterprise Institute
Kevin A. Hassett is director of Economic Policy Studies and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Before joining AEI, Dr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He was the chief economic advisor to John McCain during the 2000 primaries. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. He holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation's Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor or editor of six books on economics and economic policy. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review,the Economic Journal,the Quarterly Journal of Economics,the Review of Economics and Statistics,the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television including recent appearances on the Today Show, the CBS Morning Show, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.
