William Gale, Len Burman, Gene Steuerle

Affiliated Staff

Director

Len Burman, Senior 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

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.

Gene Steuerle, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute. Steuerle served as Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis from 1987 to 1989. Between 1984 and 1986, he served as economic coordinator and original organizer of the Treasury’s tax reform effort that led to the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Among his fifteen books, he is the author of Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy (now in its 2nd edition) and coeditor of Taxing Capital Income. He was president of the National Tax Association (2001–02) and writes regular columns on The Government We Deserve, as well as for Tax Notes.

Senior Staff

Henry Aaron, Bruce and Virginia MacLaury 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 Research Associate, 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.

Doug Elmendorf, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Elmendorf previously held positions at Harvard University, the Congressional Budget Office, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the Treasury Department, and the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board. current research focuses on the turmoil in housing and financial markets, the longer-term effects of financial innovation, and the evolution of economic volatility at the aggregate and household levels.

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.

Ben 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, Visiting 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

Mark Iwry Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Iwry was the principal executive branch official directly responsible for tax policy and regulation relating to the nation’s tax-qualified private pension system and employee benefits. He played a central role in developing major legislation expanding savings and pension coverage. He is a Principal, Retirement Security Project, research professor at Georgetown Univ., Of Counsel to Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, former partner at Covington & Burling LLP, and former member of the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform.

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.

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, Senior 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, Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 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, 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, Senior 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, Principal Research Associate, 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

Chris Geissler, Research Assistant, Brookings Institution. Geissler researches the distributional and revenue effects of federal tax proposals.

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

Greg Leiserson, Research Associate II, Urban Institute. Leiserson is a member of the TPC modeling group, where most of his work has focused on tax incentives relating to education and health insurance as well as structural reform of the AMT. He also estimates the revenue and distributional effects of legislative and independent tax proposals and manages the TPC web site's database of model estimates.

Gillian Reynolds, Research Assistant, Urban Institute. Reynolds researches the distribution and effectiveness of federal tax and spending programs for children, mobility-enhancement, and asset accumulation.

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.