Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
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Board Members

Co-Chairs

Mitch Daniels

Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. is the 12th president of Purdue University and the former governor of Indiana. During his tenure, Indiana went from bankruptcy to a AAA credit rating, led the nation in infrastructure building, and passed sweeping education reforms, including the nation’s first statewide school choice voucher program. At Purdue, he has prioritized affordability and student success.  He froze tuition and committed to maintaining the freeze for at least four years, called for greater accountability in higher education, and invested in a series of initiatives that are expanding Purdue’s STEM focus and facilitating the commercialization of faculty discoveries. In recognition of his leadership as both a governor and a university president, Daniels was named among the Top 50 World Leaders by Fortune Magazine in March 2015. Previously, Daniels served as President of Eli Lilly’s North American Pharmaceutical Operations, as a senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan and as Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton in 1971 and his law degree from Georgetown in 1979. 

Co-Chairs

Leon Panetta

Leon Panetta is most recently the former Secretary of Defense (2011-13) and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2009-11). Previously, he served as President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff (1994-97), Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1993-94), and a United States Representative from California's 17th district (1977-93). During his time in Congress, he chaired the House Committee on the Budget from 1989-93, and served as chairman of many subcommittees and task forces. He founded the Panetta Institute for Public Policy in 1998 with his wife, Sylvia, and serves on many boards and commissions, including the Public Policy Institute of California.

Co-Chairs

Timothy Penny

Timothy Penny represented Minnesota’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1982-1994. Throughout his congressional career, Penny placed an emphasis on budget issues. He chaired the Democratic Budget Group as well as the Porkbusters Coalition. Previously, he was a member of the Minnesota State Senate from 1976-82. In 2001, he was appointed to President Bush's bipartisan commission on Social Security. Most recently, Penny was a senior counselor at Himle Horner, a Twin Cities-based public relations and public affairs firm, and co-chair of the Humphrey Institute Forum at the University of Minnesota. Currently, Penny serves as Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation’s (SMIF) president & CEO. He is the co-author of two books, Common Cents (1995) and The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics (1998).

President

Maya MacGuineas

Maya MacGuineas is the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Her areas of expertise include budget, tax, and economic policy. As a leading budget expert and a political independent, she has worked closely with members of both parties and serves as a trusted resource on Capitol Hill. MacGuineas testifies regularly before Congress and has published broadly, including regularly in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, and numerous other outlets. She also appears regularly as a commentator on television.

MacGuineas oversees a number of the Committee’s projects including the grassroots coalition Fix the Debt; the Committee’s Fiscal Institute; and FixUS, a project seeking to better understand the root causes of our nation’s growing divisions and deteriorating political system, and to work with others to bring attention to these issues and the need to fix them. Her most recent area of focus is on the future of the economy, technology, and capitalism.

Previously, MacGuineas worked at the Brookings Institution and on Wall Street, and in the spring of 2009 she did a stint on The Washington Post editorial board, covering economic and fiscal policy. MacGuineas serves on a number of boards and is a native Washingtonian. Contact her at MacGuineas@crfb.org and find her on Twitter @MayaMacGuineas.

Directors

Barry Anderson

Barry Anderson has been actively involved for over four decades in budgeting, helping presidents, prime ministers, and governors construct and implement their budgets, and helping disseminate the best practices of budgeting around the world. Most of his career has been with the U.S. federal government: as the senior career official at the White House's Office of Management and Budget; as the Deputy Director and then Acting Director of the Congressional Budget Office; and as a budget analyst at the General Accounting Office. Anderson also helped governors as the Deputy Director of the National Governors Association. Internationally, he was the head of the Budgeting and Public Expenditures Division in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, and before that a budget advisor at the International Monetary Fund. He has also been a member of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, and has taught courses on the U.S. budget process for George Washington University and the Office of Personnel Management. He is currently an independent consultant on both domestic and international budget issues. 

Directors

Erskine Bowles

Erskine Bowles served as the director of the Small Business Administration, deputy chief of staff (1994-95) and chief of staff (1996-98) under the Clinton Administration. He served as president of the University of North Carolina system from 2006 until 2010. Most recently, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with fellow CRFB board member Senator Alan Simpson. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and began his business career at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York. He later returned home to North Carolina, where he founded and served as chairman and CEO of a Charlotte-based investment banking firm. 

Directors

Charles Bowsher

Charles Bowsher was the comptroller general of the General Accounting Office, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Prior to that, he was with Arthur Andersen & Co. for 25 years and served as assistant secretary of the Navy for Financial Management. Currently, he sits on several corporate and advisory boards, and is a member of the Public Accounting Oversight Board.

Directors

Kent Conrad

Kent Conrad is a former United States Senator who represented North Dakota from 1992 to 2013. He served as Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee from 2001 to 2003, and again from 2007 to 2013. He served as Ranking Member of the Committee from 2003 to 2007. In addition, he served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Taxation, IRS Oversight, and Long-Term Growth. He previously served as Tax Commissioner of North Dakota. Conrad served on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Bowles-Simpson Commission), and supported the Commission's final recommendations. He currently serves on the board of Genworth Financial.

Directors

Dan Crippen

Dan Crippen served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1999 through 2003. Prior to his stint at CBO, Crippen was President George H. W. Bush's adviser on all issues relating to domestic policy, including the preparation of the federal budget. From 1981 to 1985, he served as chief counsel and economic policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee. In the private sector, he was a principal with the Washington Counsel, a consulting firm. He has also served as executive director of the Merrill Lynch International Advisory Council and as senior vice president of the Duberstein Group.

Directors

Vic Fazio

Vic Fazio was named senior advisor at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in May 2005. He served as a Member of Congress for 20 years representing California's third congressional district. During that time, he served as a member of the Armed Services, Budget and Ethics Committees and was a member of the House Appropriations Committee for 19 years where he served as Subcommittee Chair or ranking member for 18 years.

Fazio was a member of the elected Democratic Leadership in the House from 1991-1998 including four years as chair of the Democratic Caucus, the third ranking position in the party, and four years as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. From 1975 to 1978 Fazio served in the California Assembly and was a member of the staff of the California Assembly Speaker from 1971 to 1975. Fazio serves on numerous boards, including Northrop Grumman, National Parks Conservation Association, Ice Energy, Inc., Peyton Street Independent Financial Services, the Campaign Finance Institute, Energy Future Coalition, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, UC Davis Medical School Advisory Board and the UC Davis Foundation.

Directors

Bill Gradison, Jr.

Bill Gradison, Jr. served nine terms in Congress as a member from Ohio, where he was the ranking member of the House Budget Committee and the ranking member on the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. Prior to that, he was the assistant to the secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, the assistant to the under secretary of the Treasury, and mayor of Cincinnati. Since leaving Congress, he has been president of the Health Insurance Association of America, a member of the audit committee for Project HOPE, and the senior public policy counselor at Patton Boggs. Currently he is a Commissioner on MedPAC, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

Directors

Jane Harman

Jane Harman is the director, president and chief executive officer of the Woodrow Wilson Center. Prior to assuming her current role, she represented California’s 36th congressional district from 1993 to 1999 and from 2001 to 2011. She is a member of the Defense Policy Board, the Homeland Security Advisory Committee, and the Presidential Debates Commission. A product of Los Angeles public schools, Harman is a magna cum laude graduate of Smith College, and Harvard Law School.  Prior to serving in Congress, she was staff director of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, deputy cabinet secretary to President Jimmy Carter, and special counsel to the Department of Defense. 

Directors

William Hoagland

William Hoagland, who currently serves as the Senior Vice President at the Bipartisan Policy Center, served as the director of Budget and Appropriations in the Office of the Senate Majority Leader. From 1982 until 2003, Hoagland was a staff member of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, serving as staff director from 1986 to 2003. He also was the administrator of the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service and as a special assistant to the secretary of Agriculture and at the Congressional Budget Office. He currently is an affiliate professor of public policy at the George Mason University.

Directors

James Jones

James Jones currently serves as a co-chairman and chief executive officer of Manatt Jones Global Strategies, a business consulting firm, and is senior counsel to the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. Prior to joining the firm, he served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1993 to 1997. Jones has also served as president of Warnaco International and chairman and CEO of the American Stock Exchange. As congressman of Oklahoma from 1973 to 1987, he was chairman of the House Budget Committee and a ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee. When he was only 28, President Lyndon Johnson selected him as chief of staff, making him the youngest person in history to hold this position. Jones serves on a number of Boards including those of Anheuser Busch and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Directors

Lou Kerr

Lou Kerr is an active leader in the community of Oklahoma City as well as the state and the country. She is president and chair of The Kerr Foundation, Inc. Kerr is involved in many activities, boards and philanthropic endeavors. She sits on many national and local boards, including International Women’s Forum Leadership Foundation, United Methodist Higher Education Foundation, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, OU International Studies, Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma Schools of Science and Mathematics, Oklahoma International Women’s Forum, Oklahoma Women Presidents’ Organization, Capitol Preservation Commission for Oklahoma, and Allied Arts.  She also serves on the Advisory Boards of NPR, National Symphony Orchestra, Oklahoma Health Center Foundation, and Oklahoma Commission for the Status of Women.  President Clinton appointed her to the 1995 Oklahoma City Scholarship Fund Advisory Board. She is a national trustee for the National Symphony Orchestra, has served on the Truman Foundation Scholarship Selection Committee, and is an Honorary Fellow for National Academy of Public Administration. Kerr founded the Annual Women’s Business Leadership Conference with Oklahoma State University. She has been inducted into the OCSW Women’s Hall of Fame, has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from The International Women’s Forum and the Association for Women in Communications. Kerr holds two honorary Doctorates from Oklahoma universities.

Directors

Jim Kolbe

Jim Kolbe is a former member of the US House of Representatives from the state of Arizona, serving from 1985 through 2007. While in the House, he was a member of the Appropriations Committee, serving as chair of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. He now serves as a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank, in addition to being a consultant for Kissinger McLarty Associates. He is co-chair of the Transatlantic Taskforce on Development with Gunilla Carlsson, the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation. He also serves as an adjunct professor in the College of Business at the University of Arizona.

Directors

Marjorie Margolies

Marjorie Margolis is president of the Women’s Campaign International (WCI).  From 1993 to 1995, she represented Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional district and had the distinction of being the first woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania in her own right. She founded WCI in 1998 after serving as the director of the United States delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. In addition to her work with WCI, Marjorie taught at the University of Pennsylvania for 20 years. In 2016, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Presidential Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a CBS News Foundation Fellow at Columbia University, Marjorie began her career as a journalist winning five Emmy Awards for her reporting.

Directors

Dave McCurdy

Dave McCurdy represented Oklahoma's 4th district in the House from 1981 to 1995. In his time in the House, he served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 1991 to 1993. He was also the chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council from 1993 to 1995. Prior to being elected to the House, McCurdy served as the Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma. He currently serves as President and CEO of the American Gas Association.

Directors

James T. McIntyre, Jr.

James McIntyre, Jr. joined the Carter administration as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, becoming director later that year. Prior to that, he was general counsel for the Georgia Municipal Association, serving until appointment as deputy state revenue commissioner in 1970. While serving as deputy state revenue commissioner, he was appointed director of the Office of Planning and Budget for the State by Governor Carter. After he left government, he established the McIntyre Law Firm. McIntyre is a trustee of Young Harris College.

Directors

David Minge

David Minge, a former U.S. representative from Minnesota, served on the House Agriculture Committee, House Budget Committee, Joint Economic Committee, and the House Science Committee. He is co-founder and past member of the Clean Up the River Environment Board as well as co-founder and past chair of the Agricultural Law Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association. Currently, Minge was a judge for the Minnesota Court of Appeals. In addition, he was a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., a fellow in the W.W. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Program, and a lecturer at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Directors

Michael Nutter

 

Michael Nutter served as Mayor of Philadelphia from 2008 to 2016. Prior to that, he served almost 15 years on the Philadelphia City Council. During the Obama Administration, he served on the Advisory Council of the Obama Foundation subsidiary My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, and in 2018 the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia announced his appointment as a Member of the Economic and Community Advisory Council. He also serves as a political contributor on CNN, and holds Fellow appointments at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Brookings Institute, Drexel University and the University of Chicago. He is currently Senior Advisor for the What Works Cities Program, Advisor to the African American Mayors Association and Board of the Urban Institute, and the David N. Dinkins Professor of Professional Practice in Urban and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

 
Directors

June O'Neill

June O'Neill served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1995 to 1999. Prior to that, she held positions as director of policy and research at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, and research associate at the Brookings Institution. She was elected vice president of the American Economics Association in 1998. Currently, she is the director of the Center for the Study of Business and Government at Baruch College, CUNY. She is also an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute.

Directors

Marne Obernauer, Jr.

Marne Obernauer, Jr. is chairman of the Beverage Distributors Company. He was formerly vice chairman and director of Applied Graphics Technologies, Inc., and chairman and CEO of Devon Group, Inc. before the company merged with Applied Graphics. He spent nearly a decade as an investment officer with Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette and with First National City Bank (now Citibank). He is a founding member and director of the American Business Conference and a trustee of the Trinity School in New York City.

Directors

Rudolph Penner

Rudolph G. Penner is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Previously, he was a managing director of the Barents Group, a KPMG Company. He was director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987. From 1977 to 1983, he was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Previous posts in government include assistant director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget, deputy assistant secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisors.

Directors

Robert Reischauer

Dr. Robert Reischauer was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995. Before that he served as the Urban Institute's senior vice president from 1981 to 1986. He was the Congressional Budget Office's assistant director for human resources and its deputy director between 1977 and 1981. After leaving government, he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Currently, he is the president emeritus of the Urban Institute and serves on the boards of several educational and nonprofit organizations.

Directors

Charles Robb

Charles S. Robb is on the faculty of George Mason University as a Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy in 2001. Previously he served as Lt. Governor of Virginia, from 1978 to 1982, as Virginia’s 64th Governor, from 1982 to 1986, and as a United States Senator, from 1989 to 2001. While in the Senate he became the first member ever to serve simultaneously on all three national security committees (Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations). He also served on the Finance, Commerce, and Budget Committees. Since leaving the Senate in 2001 he has served as Chairman of the Board of Visitors at the United States Naval Academy, Co-Chairman of the President’s Commission on Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. He has also been a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board, the Iraq Study Group, and the Afghanistan Study Group, and was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard and at the Marshall Wythe School of Law at William & Mary. 

Directors

Isabel Sawhill

Isabel Sawhill is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, working in the Center on Children and Families and on the Future of the Middle Class Initiative. Her research spans a wide array of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth, poverty, social mobility, and inequality. She previously served as vice president and director of the Economic Studies program from 2003 to 2006, and as co-director of the Center on Children and Families from 2006 to 2015. Prior to joining Brookings, she was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. She served in the Clinton Administration as an Associate Director of OMB, where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government, accounting for one third of the federal budget. She attended Wellesley College and received her Ph.D. from New York University.

Directors

Alan K. Simpson

Alan Simpson served as United States Senator from Wyoming for 18 years. While in Congress, Simpson served as Chairman of the Veteran’s Committee, Immigration and Refugee Subcommittee of Judiciary, the Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee, the Social Security Subcommittee and the Committee on Aging. He served for 10 years as Assistant Republican Leader under Senator Bob Dole. In 2010, Simpson was appointed as co-chair to President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with co-chair Eskine Bowles. During his time at the Fiscal Commission, he and fellow co-chair Erskine Bowles were able to garner a bipartisan majority of 11 out of 18 Commission members to support a final debt reduction plan.

Directors

John Spratt

John Spratt served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 28 years. While in Congress, he served as Chairman of the House Budget Committee from 2007 to 2011 and also served on the Armed Services Committee. During his time in Congress, Spratt championed fiscal responsibility and played a critical role in budget negotiations in the 1990s, which led to surpluses for the first time in 30 years. Spratt was also appointed to President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, where he helped garner a bipartisan majority of 11 out of 18 votes in support of a final debt reduction plan.

Directors

Charlie Stenholm

Charlie Stenholm was a representative from Texas for 26 years. While in Congress, he served on the Agriculture Committee and was founder and coordinator of the Conservative Democratic Forum in the 1980s. Stenholm consistently advanced fiscal responsibility in the federal budget. The balanced budget plans which Stenholm crafted in both the 104th and 105th Congresses with a group of moderate and conservative Democrats known as the "Blue Dog Coalition" have received wide national acclaim as the most honest, pragmatic, and fair proposals on the table. Currently, Stenholm is a senior policy advisor at Olsson Frank Weeda, P.C.

Directors

Eugene Steuerle

Eugene Steuerle is Institute Fellow and Richard B. Fischer Chair at the Urban Institute and a columnist for Tax Notes Magazine. In the past, he has served as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax analysis, president of the National Tax Association, chair of the 1999 Technical Panel advising Social Security on its methods and assumptions, economic coordinator and original organizer of the 1984 Treasury study that led to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and a columnist for the Financial Times. Dr. Steuerle is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of fifteen books.

Directors

David Stockman

David Stockman is the founding partner of Heartland Industrial Partners. He was formerly a senior managing director of The Blackstone Group. Prior to joining Blackstone, Stockman was a managing director at Salomon Brothers, Inc. He served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration and was the youngest Cabinet member of the twentieth century. From 1976 to 1981, Stockman represented Michigan in the House of Representatives.

Directors

John Tanner

John Tanner was a representative from Tennessee for 22 years. While in Congress, he served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Ways and Means, and was one of the founders of the Blue Dog Democrats. Additionally, Tanner served as President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. As a member of Congress, Tanner was a strong advocate of balancing the budget and paying down the debt.

Directors

Tom Tauke

Tom Tauke most recently served as executive vice president for Public Affairs, Policy, and Communications at Verizon. He represented Iowa's 2nd district in the House from 1979 to 1991. During his tenure, he served on the House Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, Small Business, and Aging Committees. Prior to his time in Congress, he served in the Iowa General Assembly from 1975 to 1979. He sits on several for-profit and non-profit boards.

Directors

Carol Cox Wait

Carol Wait is president of Boggs Realty Company, a family owned real estate company that has done business in Bellflower, California since 1936. Previously, she served as the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President George H.W. Bush appointed Wait to the Glass Ceiling Commission. Wait serves on the Board of CIGNA Corporation and is a past president of the International Women’s Forum. Currently, Wait serves as resident of the International Women’s Forum Leadership Foundation.