Affiliated Staff

Director

Len Burman, Institute Fellow, Urban Institute. Burman was Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis from 1998 to 2000, where he developed major proposals to expand access to savings for low-income families. He was a senior analyst at CBO from 1989 to 1997 and has taught at Georgetown University. He is the author of The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide for the Perplexed and coeditor of Taxing Capital Income. He is an occasional commentator for the public radio program Marketplace.

Co-Directors

Rosanne Altshuler, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute. Altshuler is on leave from Rutgers University where she is a professor of economics. She served as Senior Economist to the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform in 2005 and was a Special Advisor to the Joint Committee on Taxation. She has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Treasury Department and Canadian Department of Finance. Altshuler has published numerous articles on the economics of taxation and edited the National Tax Journal from 2001 through 2006.

William Gale, Vice President and Director of the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and the Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy. Gale is a former assistant professor of economics at UCLA and senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. He is coeditor of Economic Effects of Fundamental Tax Reform, Rethinking the Estate and Gift Tax, and Private Pensions and Public Policies.

Senior Staff

Henry Aaron, The Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair, Senior Fellow, Brookings. Aaron is former director of the Economic Studies Program at Brookings, and former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Among his many books, he is the coeditor of Economic Effects of Fundamental Tax Reform and coauthor of Countdown to Reform: The Great Social Security Debate.

Alan Berube, Fellow, Brookings Institution. Berube's areas of expertise include urban demographics, tax and banking policies for low-income families and communities, and state and local impacts of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Linda Blumberg, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute. Blumberg's research focuses on private health insurance, health care financing, and health system reform. Recent work includes: development of health reform options in Massachusetts; comparison of family financial burdens in obtaining children’s health insurance under SCHIP with health care tax proposals, development of standards of affordability for insurance; and developing options for expanding coverage to high cost/high risk individuals. She served as health policy advisor to the Clinton Administration during its health care reform effort.

Dana Campbell, Web Communications Manager, Urban Institute. Dana oversees the design, architecture and content management of the TPC web site and works with the team to develop new and exciting ways to present the wealth of TPC research via the web.

Lisa Clemans-Cope, Research Associate, Urban Institute. Clemans-Cope recently completed work on a simulation model of government-funded reinsurance policies at the state level, assessing the impact of alternative policies in reducing private health insurance premiums and expanding insurance coverage in three states. Clemans-Cope is currently working with a team of Urban Institute economists on a new model Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model (HIPSM). She has also conducted research investigating recent changes in offer and take-up of employer-sponsored health insurance, and how public policies affect access to health care, use of services, and enrollment in health insurance for vulnerable populations.

Nada Eissa, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and Visiting Fellow at the Urban Institute. Eissa researches tax and transfer policy, evaluating the effects of policy reforms on individual behavior (labor supply, marriage, consumption) and the implications of behavioral responses for program design.

William Frenzel, Guest Scholar, Brookings Institution. Frenzel is the Chairman of the Advisory Commission on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN) and was a member of the President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform (2005), and his Commission to Strengthen Social Security 2002. From 1971 to 1991, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (R-Minn.), where he was Ranking Minority Member of the Budget Committee and Administration Committee, and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. He was a congressional representative to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Bowen Garrett, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute. Garrett currently leads the development of the Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model (HIPSM), a microsimulation model of health insurance coverage reforms. Garrett was recently co-principal investigator of Urban Institute’s participation in the State Coverage Initiative’s Reinsurance Institute (RI). He research interests include employer-sponsored insurance, Medicaid and the uninsured, and Medicare’s prospective payment systems. Prior to joining the Urban Institute in 1998, Dr. Garrett was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Scholars in Health Policy Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Amy Gill, Web Specialist, Urban Institute. Gill created the TaxVox blog and constructed the online Tax Policy Center Briefing Book: A Citizens Guide for 2008 Election and Beyond. She participated in the redesign of the TPC web site, handles multimedia files from TPC events, and provides general web support.

Howard Gleckman Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute. Gleckman is the editor of TaxVox, the center’s tax and budget policy blog. He is a visiting fellow at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, where he specializes in long-term care issues. He is author of a forthcoming book on long-term care. He was formerly senior correspondent in the Washington bureau of Business Week and a former Media Fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Benjamin Harris, Senior Research Associate, Brookings Institution. Harris was formerly the Senior Economist for the Budget Committee in the House of Representatives. His research is devoted to tax policy, budget, and retirement saving issues. He is currently researching the distributional effects of various tax policies and analyzing proposals to encourage better retirement saving.

Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Brookings; Senior Consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Haskins has served as senior advisor to the president for welfare policy at the White House; majority staff director, Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1995–2000; and welfare counsel, Republican staff, Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, 1986–94.

Renee van Wisse Hendley, Senior Associate, Urban Institute. Hendley manages the overall operations of TPC including financial management, proposals, The Opportunity Fund, outreach and communications, and financial and progress reporting requirements for our funders.

Harry Holzer, Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University, Institute Fellow, Urban Institute. A former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, Holtzer is the author What Employers Want: Job Prospects for Less-Educated Workers and coeditor of The Black Youth Employment Crisis

Surachai Khitatrakun Research Associate, Urban Institute. Khitatrakun examines various tax and retirement issues and is responsible for developing and maintaining the TPC’s microsimulation model of the federal tax system. He is also helping to develop the health insurance model.

Elaine Maag, Research Associate, Urban Institute. Maag studies social assistance in the tax system, particularly for low- and middle-income families, and state taxes. She maintains the federal and payroll tax modules of the Transfer Income Model at the Urban Institute.

Gordon McDonald, Assistant Director of the Economic Studies Program for Special Projects, The Brookings Institution. McDonald is responsible for the Economic Studies Program's strategic priorities including development, strategic planning, external and internal relations, and the Tax Policy Center. Previously, McDonald was a Senior Research and Policy Associate at the Retirement Security Project and a Senior Researcher at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Doug Murray, Programmer/Analyst, Urban Institute. Murray is the lead programmer for the TPC web site. He developed and maintains the databases and web scripts for both the TPC and the Urban Institute main website at www.urban.org. He also provides programming support for the Institute's Dynasim3 microsimulation model.

Austin Nichols, Research Associate, Urban Institute. Nichols examines various tax, welfare, disability, and retirement issues. Currently, he is modeling income and poverty dynamics, characterizing the incidence of the EITC, and describing the circumstances and work incentives of low-income working families.

Rudolph G. Penner, Institute Fellow and Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Public Policy, Urban Institute. Penner was Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987 and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute from 1977 to 1983. Previous government posts include Assistant Director at the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Senior Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisors. He coauthored Updating America’s Social Contract, and edited Taxing the Family.

Robert Reischauer, President, Urban Institute. Reischauer is a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and a former Senior Fellow at Brookings. He is the coauthor of Countdown to Reform: The Great Social Security Debate and coeditor of Setting National Priorities: The 2000 Election and Beyond.

Alice Rivlin, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Rivlin is the Chair of the District of Columbia Financial Management Assistance Authority. She is a former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, former Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health Education and Welfare. She was the founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Jeffrey Rohaly, Senior Research Methodologist, Urban Institute, and Director of Modeling for the Tax Policy Center. Rohaly is responsible for developing and maintaining the TPC’s microsimulation model of the federal tax system.

Kim Rueben, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute. Rueben examines issues of state and local public finance focusing on state budget issues, intergovernmental relations, municipal bond markets, capital markets and the economics of education. She is also an adjunct fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Isabel Sawhill, The Cabot Family Chair, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Sawhill is a former associate director at the Office of Management and Budget, and director of the Budgeting for National Priorities project at Brookings. Among her many books, she is an editor and author (with others) of two of the books in Brookings’ Restoring Fiscal Sanity Series.

Eric Toder, Institute Fellow, Urban Institute. Toder was Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis from 1993 to 1996. His other previous positions include Director of IRS Research from 2001 to 2004, Deputy Assistant Director for Tax Analysis at the Congressional Budget Office, 1984-88 and 1991-93, and Consultant to the New Zealand Treasury from 1988 to 1991. He is the author and co-author of numerous papers on tax policy, tax administration, and retirement issues.

Roberton Williams, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute. Williams was at the Congressional Budget Office from 1984 through 2006, most recently as deputy assistant director for tax analysis, and before that an assistant professor of economics at Williams College. He has written numerous papers on tax policy, income distribution, and social welfare programs.

Staff

Joy Falzarano, Project Associate, Urban Institute. Falzarano manages and updates the Tax Policy Center web site and listserve, provides general research assistance, and assists with conference planning and center management.

Rachel Johnson, Research Assistant, Urban Institute.  Johnson helps maintain the Tax Model and TPC website and tables.  She also provides research on the distributional and revenue effects of current legislation and tax proposals.

Katherine Lim, Research Assistant, Urban Institute. Lim works with the center’s microsimulation model to estimate distributional and revenue effects of federal tax reforms.

Leah Puttkammer, Assistant to Co-Director Bill Gale and Development Coordinator, Brookings Institution.  Puttkammer coordinates a variety of meetings, TPC events, media calls and development activities.

Carol Rosenberg, Research Assistant, Urban Institute. Rosenberg researches the distributional and revenue effects of state and local tax systems and maintains the Tax Policy Center’s Tax Facts database.