James C. Miller III

James C. Miller III (born June 25, 1942 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former U.S. government official and economist who served as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission between 1981 and 1985 and as Budget Director for President Ronald Reagan between 1985 and 1988. He also ran for United States Senate in Virginia, losing the Republican nomination at the convention to Oliver North in 1994 and losing the nomination in the primary to John Warner in 1996.

Miller was born in Atlanta and grew up in Conyers, Georgia. He earned a B.B.A. in economics from the University of Georgia in 1964 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia in 1969.

Between 1977 and 1981, Miller was a Resident Scholar at the Center for the Study of Government Regulation at the American Enterprise Institute. From 1978 to 1981, he served as co-director of the center.

Miller was the first Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (April - October 1981) and the Executive Director of Vice President George H. W. Bush's Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief. From 1981 to 1985, he chaired the Federal Trade Commission. From October 1985 to October 1988, Miller was director of the United States Office of Management and Budget.

He has been John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow at the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation and at the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University. He is also a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.[1]

He has been counselor to and a board member of Citizens for a Sound Economy[2] (1988–2002), a Member of the Boards of the Tax Foundation and the Progress and Freedom Foundation, and a member of the Board of Visitors of George Mason University and the U.S. Air Force Academy. In addition, Miller has been a Director of LECG Economics-Finance, a Member of the Board of Independence Air, a Member of the Board of Washington Mutual Investors Fund, a Member of the Board of the Tax-Exempt Fund of Maryland, a Member of the Board of the Tax-Exempt Fund of Virginia, a Member of the Board of the J.P. Morgan Value Opportunities Fund, a Member of the Board of Clean Energy, a consultant to Freddie Mac, and Chairman of the Board of Economic Impact Analysts, Inc. (family-held consulting firm).[3]

From 2003 to 2006, Miller was chairman (or chairman emeritus) of the Capital Analysis Group (CapAnalysis), a division of the international law firm Howrey LLP. Currently, he is a senior advisor to international law firm of Husch Blackwell Sanders (merger dated March 1, 2008) [4] and serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service, where he was elected chairman in 2005.[5]

On November 9, 2009, it was announced that Miller was picked by Cayman Islands Premier William McKeeva Bush to lead an independent task force to examine new revenue options for the Cayman Islands Government. The Cayman Islands has no direct taxation although that my change as a result of an agreement with the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The UK FCO allowed the Cayman Islands Government to borrow additional funds to meet capital and operational expenses as long as the Government agreed to look at ways in which to increase and stabilize its revenue base—direct taxation being the preferred solution.

Quotations

• "[My budget employees] are the kind of people that run over dogs. [Pause] I meant that in the best possible way." -- attributed to Jim Miller by Page A Day Calendars, Workman Publishing, in "The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said Calendar", page for September 20, 2003.

References

• President Reagan's speech to OMB staff upon Jim Miller's retirement, September 28, 1988