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Session 18: The Bush Tax Cuts: End ‘Em or Extend ‘Em or Reform ‘Em
The panelists will address the 2001-03 tax cuts, and what that experience tells us about directions for tax reform.
Presentations
James Poterba's slides (PDF)
C. Eugene Steuerle's slides (PDF)
Links of Interest
Speakers
Steve Liesman
Senior Economic Reporter
CNBC
As CNBC’s Senior Economics Reporter, Steve Liesman reports on all aspects of the economy including the Federal Reserve Bank and major economic indicators. He appears on “Squawk Box” (M-F, 7-10 a.m. ET), as well as other CNBC programs throughout the Business Day.
Liesman joined CNBC from The Wall Street Journal where he served as a senior economics reporter covering monetary policy, international economics, academic research and productivity. At the Journal, Liesman previously worked as an energy reporter and, from 1996-98, as the Journal’s Moscow bureau chief. He was a member of the reporting team recognized with a Pulitzer Prize for stories chronicling the crash of the Russian financial markets.
Prior to joining the Journal in 1994, Liesman was the business editor for The Moscow Times, where, as the founding business editor for the country’s first English language daily newspaper, he helped create the publication’s stock index, which was the country’s first. Liesman has also worked as a business reporter for both the St. Petersburg Times in St. Petersburg, Fl., and The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fl.
Liesman holds a Masters of Science from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. in English from the State University of New York, Buffalo.
James Poterba
Mitsui Professor of Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
James Poterba is the Mitsui Professor of Economics and the Associate Head of the Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1982. He is also the Director of the Public Economics Research Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society. He has served as a Director of the American Finance Association and as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association. Dr. Poterba's research focuses on how taxation affects the economic decisions of households and firms. His recent work has emphasized the effect of taxation on the financial behavior of households, particularly their saving and portfolio decisions. He has been especially interested in the analysis of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans and in the role of annuities in financing retirement consumption. Dr. Poterba is currently serving as a member of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. He is a former member of the MIT 401(k) Plan Oversight Committee. Dr. Poterba edits the Journal of Public Economics, the leading international journal for research on taxation and government spending. He is a member of the advisory boards of the Journal of Wealth Management and the Investment Management Consultant's Association Journal. He is a co-author of The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement (2001), and an editor or co-editor of Global Warming: Economic Policy Responses (1991), International Comparisons of Household Saving (1994), Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation (1996), and Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance (1999). Dr. Poterba studied Economics as an undergraduate at Harvard, and received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He has been an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, a Batterymarch Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
C. Eugene Steuerle
Senior Fellow
The Urban Institute
Eugene Steuerle is a senior fellow at The Urban Institute, codirector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, columnist for Tax Notes, and the author or editor of 11 books, more than 150 reports and articles, more than 50 Congressional testimonies or reports, and more than 600 columns. His latest book is Contemporary Tax Policy. He serves on the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and on advisory panels or boards for the Congressional Budget Office, the General Accounting Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Actuarial Foundation, and the Independent Sector.
Previous positions include president of the National Tax Association (2001-2002), chair of the 1999 Technical Panel advising Social Security on its methods and assumptions, president of the National Economists Club Educational Foundation, deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax analysis (1987-1989), and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Between 1984 and 1986, he served as economic coordinator and original organizer of the Treasury's tax reform effort, for which Treasury and White House officials have written that tax reform "would not have moved forward without your early leadership."
Dr. Steuerle's other books include: Social Security and the Family (coedited with Melissa Favreault and Frank Sammartino) and Nonprofits and Government (coedited with Elizabeth Boris). His columns have appeared mainly in three series: "Straight Talk on Social Security and Retirement Policy" for the Urban Institute, "Economic Perspective" for Tax Notes, and an "After Tax" column for the Financial Times.
Dr. Steuerle also has undertaken various missions for International Monetary Fund to China, Singapore, and Slovakia, while the government of Barbados undertook a tax reform effort modeled after a report that he coauthored as head of another mission.
