Alice Rivlin

Alice Mitchell Rivlin (born March 4, 1931, in Philadelphia) is an economist and former U.S. Federal Reserve and budget official. She served as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office. Rivlin is an expert on the U.S. federal budget and macroeconomic policy. She is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and visiting professor at Georgetown University.

Early life and education

Alice Rivlin is a daughter of the physicist Allan C. G. Mitchell and a granddaughter of the astronomer Samuel Alfred Mitchell. She grew up in Bloomington, Indiana where her father was on the faculty of Indiana University. She briefly attended University High School in Bloomington before leaving to attend high school at The Madeira School. She then went on to study at Bryn Mawr College. Initially, she wanted to major in history, but after taking an economics course at Indiana University she decided to change her major to economics instead. Rivlin earned her Bachelor's of Art in 1952, writing her senior thesis on the economic integration of Western Europe, and upon graduation, she moved to Europe where she worked on the Marshall Plan. Originally, Rivlin wanted to attend graduate school in public administration but was rejected on the grounds that she was a woman of marriageable age. Rivlin went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1958.

Career

Alice Rivlin has been affiliated several times with the Brookings Institution, including stints in 1957–66, 1969–75, 1983–93, and 1999 to the present. She is currently a visiting professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. From 1968 to 1969, she was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1971 she authored Systematic Thinking for Social Action. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973.^[1]

She was the first director of the newly established Congressional Budget Office during 1975–83, where she was a persistent and vociferous critic of Reaganomics as head of the CBO. In 1983, she won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award. Under President Bill Clinton she served as the deputy director of Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1994, director of OMB from 1994 to 1996 (becoming the first woman to hold the Cabinet-level position), and a governor of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999, during which time she served as the Fed's vice-chair. She was also chair of the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority from 1998 to 2001.

In 2012 she received a Foremother Award from the National Research Center for Women & Families. ^[2]

Debt reduction/fiscal management panels in 2010

Rivlin and former Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) were named in January, 2010 to chair a Debt Reduction Task Force, sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.^[3]

Rivlin soon thereafter was named by President Obama to his 18-member bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform panel chaired by former Senator Alan K. Simpson, (R-WY), and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles (D), commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles Commission. In 2010, Rivlin was appointed by President Barack Obama to his .. The balance of the panel is three more members appointed by the President, six members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and six members of the U.S. Senate. The commission first met on April 27, 2010, and had a December report deadline.^[4] A health-care component of the overall U.S. federal and state fiscal-management challenge was addressed by a panel including Rivlin on the Diane Rehm Show in June.^[5]

Along with former Comptroller General David Walker, Rivlin danced the Harlem Shake in a video produced by The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan group that aims to organize millennials to pressure lawmakers to address the United States' $16.4 trillion debt.^[6] The video concludes with her making an importuned plea to the twenty somethings seated around the room: "There's no dancing around the fact that more needs to be done quickly to put our future debt on a downward track. But our leaders need to hear from you."

Personal life

Rivlin is of Cornish ancestry.^[7] In 1955, she married former Justice Department attorney Lewis Allen Rivlin of the Rivlin family; they divorced in 1977.^[8]

References

External links

• Home page at the Brookings Institution
• Interview with the Minneapolis Fed
• Interview with Federal Reserve
• Testimony of Alice Rivlin to Congress, October 5, 1977, on the potential energy savings of urban transportation.
• Alice Rivlin profile at LittleSis
• Statements and Speeches of Alice M. Rivlin

Directors of the United States Office of Management and Budget Dawes Lord Roop Douglas D W Bell Smith Webb Pace Lawton Dodge Hughes Brundage Stans D E Bell Gordon Schultze Zwick Mayo Shultz Weinberger Ash Lynn Lance McIntyre Stockman Miller Wright Darman Panetta Rivlin Raines Lew Daniels Bolten Portman Nussle Orszag Lew Burwell Donovan

Cabinet of President Bill Clinton (1993–2001)   Cabinet Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher (1993–1997) Madeleine Albright (1997–2001) Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen (1993–1994) Robert Rubin (1995–1999) Larry Summers (1999–2001) Secretary of Defense Les Aspin (1993–1994) William J. Perry (1994–1997) William S. Cohen (1997–2001) Attorney General Janet Reno (1993–2001) Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt (1993–2001) Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy (1993–1994) Dan Glickman (1995–2001) Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (1993–1996) Mickey Kantor (1996–1997) William M. Daley (1997–2000) Norman Mineta (2000–2001) Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (1993–1997) Alexis M. Herman (1997–2001) Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala (1993–2001) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros (1993–1997) Andrew M. Cuomo (1997–2001) Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña (1993–1997) Rodney Slater (1997–2001) Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary (1993–1997) Federico Peña (1997–1998) Bill Richardson (1998–2001) Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley (1993–2001) Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown (1993–1997) Togo West (1998–2000) * Acting secretary   Cabinet-level Vice President Al Gore (1993–2001) White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty (1993–1994) Leon Panetta (1994–1997) Erskine Bowles (1997–1998) John Podesta (1998–2001) Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Carol M. Browner (1993–2001) Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright (1993–1997) Bill Richardson (1997–1998) Richard C. Holbrooke (1999–2001) Director of the Office of Management and Budget Leon Panetta (1993–1994) Alice Rivlin (1994–1996) Franklin D. Raines (1996–1998) Jack Lew (1998–2001) Director of National Drug Control Policy Lee P. Brown (1993–1995) Barry McCaffrey (1996–2001) Trade Representative Mickey Kantor (1993–1997) Charlene Barshefsky (1997–2001) Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency James L. Witt (1993–2001)* Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey, Jr. (1993-1995) John M. Deutch (1995–1996) George Tenet (1997–2001) Chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers Laura Tyson (1993-1995) Joseph Stiglitz (1995-1997) Janet Yellen (1997-1999) Martin Neil Baily (1999-2001) Administrator of the Small Business Administration Philip Lader (1994–1997) Aída M. Álverez (1997–2001) * took office in 1993, raised to cabinet-rank in 1996