Posted on 05/15/2019 3:40:11 AM PDT by Jaysin
Alice Rivlin, a leading expert on US budget policy who served as the first director of the Congressional Budget Office, has died at the age of 88.
The economist, who in the 1990s became the first woman to be White House budget director and vice-chair of the Federal Reserve Board, died of cancer on Tuesday morning in Washington DC, according to the Brookings Institution think-tank, where she was a senior fellow.
Rivlin “made great and lasting contributions as a leader and economic policymaker and broke barriers as a woman in the economics profession,” Fed chair Jay Powell said in a statement. Janet Yellen, the former Fed chair, described her as a mentor, role model and inspiration to women in economics.
A centrist Democrat, Rivlin earned a reputation as a prominent voice for budgetary discipline during her multi-decade career in public service, as well as an advocate of bipartisan co-operation in an increasingly bitterly divided Washington. She held roles in public service going back half a century, among the most prominent being founding director of the CBO in 1975.
There she oversaw the work of a newly-created agency aiming to provide Congress with economic and budgetary analysis to inform legislative decisions. She worked in the post until 1983, earning the ire of Republicans when she projected higher deficits than the Reagan administration.
“She established the agency’s structure and formulated procedures, standards, and goals that have guided it for more than four decades,” said Keith Hall, the CBO’s current head. “Above all, she forged a commitment to providing objective, non-partisan information to help the Congress make effective budget and economic policy.”
In Bill Clinton’s administration, Rivlin worked as director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1994 until she was appointed to the Fed’s powerful board of governors in 1996 — a role she held until 1999. In the latter role she served under chairman Alan Greenspan, backing his view that the economy was capable of generating firm growth without stoking up inflationary hazards.
In the late 1990s she took on the role of tackling the District of Columbia’s budgetary crisis, while more recently she served on Barack Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, also known as the Simpson-Bowles commission, which examined ways of improving the sustainability of US public finances.
John Yarmuth, the Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee, said: “Alice Rivlin was one of the foremost leaders of the budget world who had the respect and admiration of Democrats and Republicans alike. Her vision and leadership made the Congressional Budget Office into the vital resource it is today, and her contributions will continue to help frame our debates for years to come.”
Rivlin graduated from Bryn Mawr college in 1952 and earned her PhD in economics from Radcliffe College in 1958. She joined Brookings as a research fellow in 1957, going on to serve in the administration of Lyndon Johnson in the late 1960s. During her career Rivlin taught at Harvard, Georgetown, George Mason and The New School universities.
She had three children from her first marriage, to lawyer Lewis Rivlin, which ended in divorce. In 1989 she married economics professor Sidney G Winter, who survives her along with her children.
but one thing is for sure: you know that anyone who served in a financial management role such as Director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton Admin definitely was involved in the Clinton money laundering rackets--no doubt about it.
Maybe she knew too much, and was Vince Fostered, even at her age............
But in all seriousness, RIP and may her family be consoled in their time of mourning.
In Bill Clinton’s administration, Rivlin worked as director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1994 until she was appointed to the Fed’s powerful board of governors in 1996 — a role she held until 1999. In the latter role she served under chairman Alan Greenspan, backing his view that the economy was capable of generating firm growth without stoking up inflationary hazards.
...
That’s because economic growth doesn’t cause inflation.
Someone whom nobody but a few bankers, media elites and politicians ever heard of yet who wielded tremendous power over us.
I could care less about this Party apparatchik. I reserve my thoughts and prayers for real Americans.
Prayers for her soul.
Alice Rivlin, a leading expert on US budget policy who served as the first director of the Congressional Budget Office, has died at the age of 88.
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