A Strategic Policy: Investment, Social Security and Economic Recovery
EPS Bernard L. Schwartz Symposium: Working Groups on the Economics Crisis
Co-sponsored by The New America Foundation
Program
Welcoming Remarks: James K. Galbraith — Economists for Peace and Security
Session One: The Economy and the Budget (video, transcript)
Chair: Richard Kaufman — Bethesda Research Group
Thomas Palley — Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation
Heather Boushey — Senior Economist, Center for American Progress
Michael Intriligator — UCLA, Milken Institute
Keynote: Barbara Kennelly — President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (video, transcript)
Session Two: Social Security, Medicare and the Budget (video, transcript)
Chair: Sherle Schwenninger — New America Foundation, Economic Growth program
Eric Laursen — Independent Journalist
Nancy Altman — Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pension Rights Center
Greg Anrig — vice president, programs, at The Century Foundation
Harold Pollack — the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago
Keynote: James K. Galbraith — Economists for Peace and Security (video, transcript)
Session Three: Defense and the Budget (video, transcript)
Chair: Michael Lind — New America Foundation, Economic Growth Program
Linda Bilmes — Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government
Lawrence Korb — Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
William Hartung — Director, Arms and Security Initiative, New America Foundation
Heather Hurlburt — Executive Director, National Security Network
Participant Biographies
Nancy Altman
Nancy J. Altman has a thirty-five year background in the areas of Social Security and private pensions. She is co-director of Social Security Works and co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition and campaign. She is the author of The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).
From 1983 to 1989, Ms. Altman was on the faculty of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and taught courses on private pensions and Social Security at the Harvard Law School. In 1982, she was Alan Greenspan's assistant in his position as chairman of the bipartisan commission that developed the 1983 Social Security amendments. From 1977 to 1981, she was a legislative assistant to Senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo,), and advised the Senator with respect to Social Security issues. From 1974 to 1977, she was a tax lawyer with Covington & Burling, where she handled a variety of private pension matters.
Ms. Altman is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of beneficiary rights. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Foundation of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, as well as the National Academy of Social Insurance, a membership organization of over 800 of the nation's leading experts on social insurance. In the mid-1980’s, she was on the organizing committee and the first board of directors of the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Ms. Altman has an A.B. from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Greg Anrig
Greg Anrig is vice president, programs, at The Century Foundation. Since 1994, he has been responsible for overseeing The Century Foundation’s projects on public policy as well as its fellows. Previously, he was a staff writer and Washington correspondent for Money magazine. He is the author of The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing (John Wiley & Sons, 2007). He is coeditor (with Tova Andrea Wang) of Immigration’s New Frontiers: Experiences from the Emerging Gateway States (The Century Foundation Press, 2006), in addition to the three collections of essays he co-edited (with Richard C. Leone): Liberty Under Attack: Reclaiming Our Freedoms in an Age of Terror (PublicAffairs, 2007); The War on Our Freedoms: Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism (PublicAffairs, 2003); and Social Security Reform: Beyond the Basics (The Century Foundation Press, 1999). He also is a featured blogger on TPM Café and a regular columnist for the Guardian Unlimited.
Linda Bilmes
Professor Linda J. Bilmes is a full-time faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School where she teaches budgeting, applied budgeting, and public finance. She has held senior positions in government, including Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of Commerce, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration, and US Representative to several high-ranking commissions, including a US Treasury Department commission to audit the Inter-American Investment Corporation. Bilmes served on the presidential transition team for President Barack Obama and is currently an advisor to the US Army, the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Parks. She also teaches budgeting workshops for newly-elected Mayors and Members of Congress, conducted by the Institute of Politics.
Bilmes has written extensively on financial and budgetary issues, including the cost of the Iraq War, veterans’ health and disability costs, state and local employee pensions, and federal workforce reform. She is the co-author (with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz) of the New York Times best-seller The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, and a number of papers and book chapters on related topics including "Soldiers Returning From Iraq and Afghanistan: The Long-term Costs of Providing Veterans Medical Care and Disability Benefits” and "The Economic Costs of The Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of The Conflict." Her most recent book The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service (co-authored with W. Scott Gould) was published in April 2009.
Bilmes is frequently interviewed on national media broadcasts, including the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN World News Tonight, In the Money, the Lou Dobbs Show, CBS Evening News, Democracy Now, NPR’s “Fresh Air”, “All Things Considered”, “Here and Now” and “On Point”; BBCWorld Service and Bloomberg television and radio. She is featured in the academy award-nominated documentary film No End In Sight. She was awarded the prestigious “Speaking Truth to Power” Prize by the American Friends Service Committee in 2008.
Heather Boushey
Heather Boushey is Senior Economist at the Center for American Progress. Her research focuses on employment, social policy, and family economic well-being. Much of her current work focuses on the Great Recession’s impact on workers and their families, as well as policies to promote job creation. She co-edited The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything (Simon & Schuster ebook, 2009) and was a lead author of “Bridging the Gaps,” a 10-state study about how low- and -moderate-income working families are left out of work support programs. Her research has been published in academic journals and has been covered in The Washington Post, Newsweek, and a variety of other media outlets, including The New York Times, where she was called one of the “most vibrant voices in the field.” She also spearheaded a successful campaign to save the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation from devastating budget cuts.
Boushey received her Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research and her B.A. from Hampshire College. She has held an economist position with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and the Economic Policy Institute, where she was a co-author of their flagship publication, The State of Working America 2002/3. She grew up in a union family in Mukilteo, Washington, and now lives with her husband, Todd Tucker, in Washington, D.C.
James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith teaches economics and a variety of other subjects at the LBJ School. He holds degrees from Harvard (B.A. magna cum laude, 1974) and Yale (Ph.D. in economics, 1981). He studied economics as a Marshall Scholar at King's College, Cambridge in 1974-1975, and then served in several positions on the staff of the U.S. Congress, including Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee. He was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in 1985. He directed the LBJ School's Ph.D. Program in Public Policy from 1995 to 1997. He directs the University of Texas Inequality Project, an informal research group based at the LBJ School. Galbraith maintains several outside connections, including serving as a Senior Scholar of the Levy Economics Institute and as Chair of the Board of Economists for Peace and Security. He writes a column called "Econoclast" for Mother Jones, and occasional commentary in many other publications, including The Texas Observer, The American Prospect, and The Nation. He is an occasional commentator for Public Radio International's Marketplace.
William Hartung
William D. Hartung is Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. The project serves as a resource for journalists, policymakers, and citizen's organizations on the issues of weapons proliferation, the economics of military spending, and alternative approaches to national security strategy.
Before coming to New America, Mr. Hartung worked for 15 years as Director of the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute at the New School in New York City. He was also a policy analyst and speech writer for New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams, and a project director at the New York-based Council on Economic Priorities. An expert on weapons proliferation, the politics and economics of military spending, regional security, and national security strategy, Mr. Hartung is the author of numerous books, reports, and chapters in collected works on the issues of nuclear weapons, conventional arms sales, and the economics of military spending. He has served as a featured expert on the major network and cable news outlets, and has written for national and international newspapers and magazines on a variety of national security issues.
Heather Hurlburt
Heather F. Hurlburt is a Michigan-based writer and consultant — and former presidential speech writer.
In 2002, Ms. Hurlburt helped lead the start-up of DATA (Debt AIDS and Trade in Africa), a new non-profit formed to bring celebrities, experts and grassroots citizens together to press for a stronger response to the twin crises of AIDS and poverty in Africa.
Previously, she had been the U.S. deputy director of the International Crisis Group (ICG), an international non-profit working to prevent and end conflicts.
From 1996 to 2001, Ms. Hurlburt served in the Clinton Administration. She initially served as a State Department speechwriter and member of the policy planning staff for Secretaries Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. From 1999 to 2001, she was a Special Assistant and speechwriter to President Clinton.
Prior to joining the Clinton Administration, Ms. Hurlburt ran a public speakers’ program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She also participated in European security and human rights negotiations as a staff member on the Congressional Helsinki Commission — and worked at the Center for Foreign Policy Development (now the Watson Center at Brown University).
Ms. Hurlburt writes and speaks extensively on foreign policy and security issues. Recent publications include “Can Europe Hack The Balkans?” Foreign Affairs (with Morton Abramowitz, September/October 2002) — and “Why Democrats Can’t Think Straight About War,” (The Washington Monthly, November 2002. She lives in Michigan with her husband, Dr. Darius Sivin.
Michael Intriligator
Michael D. Intriligator is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he is also Professor of Political Science, Professor of Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs, and Co-Director of the Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Milken Institute in Santa Monica. He has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 1963, teaching courses in economic theory, econometrics, mathematical economics, international relations, and health economics, and he has received several distinguished teaching awards. He has served as the Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and its predecessor, the UCLA Center for International and Strategic Affairs.
Dr. Intriligator received his undergraduate S.B. degree in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; his M.A. degree at Yale University, where he was the recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship; and his Ph.D. in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked with Robert M. Solow and Paul A. Samuelson both of whom were later awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Dr. Intriligator is the author of more than 200 journal articles and other publications in the areas of economic theory and mathematical economics, econometrics, health economics, reform of the Russian economy, and strategy and arms control, his principal research fields.
Dr. Intriligator is Vice Chair and a member of the Board of Directors of Economists for Peace and Security (EPS) and was President of the Peace Science Society (International) in 1993. He edits the Elsevier Series, "Handbooks in Economics" with Stanford Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow, and he serves on the Editorial Boards of Economic Directions, Defence and Peace Economics, and Conflict Management and Peace Science. He is currently Immediate Past President of the Western Economic Association International, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Senior Fellow of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America, an AAAS Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. and an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London)
Richard Kaufman
Richard Kaufman is a member of the board of directors and a vice chair of Economists for Peace and Security. He was formerly a staff economist and general counsel of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress where he directed and authored numerous studies on national and international security issues including defense spending, procurement, research and development, and economic trends in Russia and China. Most recently he directed and co-authored EPS reports on missile defense and the space program.
Barbara Kennelly
Barbara B. Kennelly became President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare in April 2002 after a distinguished 23-year career in elected public office. Mrs. Kennelly was appointed to the Social Security Advisory Board in January 2006 and served on the Policy Committee for the 2005 White House Conference on Aging.
The Congresswoman served 17 years in the United States House of Representatives representing the First District of Connecticut, which includes Hartford and surrounding towns. Mrs. Kennelly won her congressional seat in a special election in January 1982. In 1996, she was elected to her eighth full term with over 74 percent of the vote, but did not run for reelection.
After serving in Congress, Mrs. Kennelly was appointed to the position of Counselor to the Commissioner at the Social Security Administration (SSA). As Counselor, Mrs. Kennelly worked closely with the Commissioner of Social Security Kenneth S. Apfel, and members of Congress to inform and educate the American people on the choices they face to ensure the future solvency of Social Security.
Upon leaving SSA, Mrs. Kennelly joined the law firm of Baker & Hostetler LLP, where she was a lobbyist within the federal policy practice group.
During her congressional career, Mrs. Kennelly was the first woman elected to serve as the Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. In November 1996, Congresswoman Kennelly was reelected by her colleagues to serve a second term as the Vice Chair during the 105th Congress. As Vice Chair, she ranked fourth in the elected party leadership.
Mrs. Kennelly was also the first woman to serve on the House Committee on Intelligence and to chair one of its subcommittees. She was the first woman to serve as Chief Majority Whip, and the third woman in history to serve on the 200-year-old Ways and Means Committee. During the 105th Congress, she was the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Social Security, which oversees the largest single government program in the United States.
A life-long resident of Hartford, Congresswoman Kennelly received a B.A. in Economics from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. She earned a certificate from the Harvard Business School on completion of the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration and a Master's Degree in Government from Trinity College, Hartford.
Prior to her election to Congress, Mrs. Kennelly was Secretary of the State of Connecticut and a member of the Hartford Court of Common Council. Her late husband, James, was Speaker of the Connecticut State House. Mrs. Kennelly has three daughters and a son. She also has ten grandchildren. Among her many civic involvements, Mrs. Kennelly serves as Vice Chair of the Advisory Board of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut. Mrs. Kennelly also serves on the Board of Directors of the United States Association of Former Members of Congress; the International Foundation for Election Systems; the Board of Electors, Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Advisory Boards of BNA’s Medicare Report and the Washington Center.
Lawrence J. Korb
Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress he was a senior fellow and director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002 he was council vice president, director of studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair.
Prior to joining the council, Dr. Korb served as director of the Center for Public Policy Education and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution; dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; vice president of corporate operations at the Raytheon Company; and director of defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dr. Korb served as assistant secretary of defense (manpower, reserve affairs, installations, and logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the defense budget. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense's medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Albany and has held full-time teaching positions at the University of Dayton, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Naval War College.
Eric Laursen
Eric Laursen is an independent journalist who has been covering Social Security, Medicare, and the American retirement system for two decades.
He was co-founder and managing editor of Plan Sponsor, the leading monthly magazine for pension fund executives, and is co-author of Understanding the Crash (Soft Skull Press/Counterpoint LLC, 2010). His history of the Social Security debate, The People's Pension: The War Against Social Security from Reagan to Obama, will be published by AK Press in Spring 2012. Eric blogs on Social Security and related issues at http://peoplespension.infoshop.org/blogs-mu/. He lives in western Massachusetts.
Michael Lind
Michael Lind is the Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author, with Ted Halstead, of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics (Doubleday, 2001). He is also the author of Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (New America Books/Basic, 2003) and What Lincoln Believed (Doubleday, 2005). Mr. Lind has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Republic. From 1991 to 1994, he was executive editor of The National Interest. He has also been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School. Mr. Lind has written for The Atlantic Monthly, Prospect (U.K.), The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, and other leading publications, and has appeared on C-SPAN, National Public Radio, CNN’s Crossfire, and PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Mr. Lind’s first three books of political journalism and history, The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution (Free Press, 1995), Up From Conservatism: Why the Right Is Wrong for America (Free Press, 1996), and Vietnam: The Necessary War (Free Press, 1999) were all selected as New York Times Notable Books. He has also published several volumes of fiction and poetry, including The Alamo (Houghton Mifflin, 1997), which the Los Angeles Times named as one of the Best Books of the year, and a prize-winning children’s book, Bluebonnet Girl (Henry Holt, 2004). His ground-breaking study of American grand strategy, The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life was published by Oxford University Press in October 2006.
Thomas Palley
Dr. Thomas Palley is an economist living in Washington DC. He holds a B.A. degree from Oxford University, and a M.A. degree in International Relations and Ph.D. in Economics, both from Yale University.
He has published in numerous academic journals, and written for The Atlantic Monthly, American Prospect and Nation magazines.
Dr . Palley has recently started a project, Economics for Democratic & Open Societies. The goal of the project is to stimulate public discussion about what kinds of economic arrangements and conditions are needed to promote democracy and open society.
Dr . Palley was formerly Chief Economist with the US China Economic and Security Review Commission. Prior to joining the Commission he was Director of the Open Society Institute’s Globalization Reform Project, and before that he was Assistant Director of Public Policy at the AFL-CIO.
Harold Pollack
Harold Pollack is the Helen Ross Professor at the School of Social Service Administration, and faculty chair of the Center for Health Administration Studies. He is also Co-Director of The University of Chicago Crime Lab. He has published widely at the interface between poverty policy and public health. His recent research concerns HIV and hepatitis prevention efforts for injection drug users, drug abuse and dependence among welfare recipients and pregnant women, infant mortality prevention, and child health. His research appears in such journals as Addiction, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Public Health, Health Services Research, Pediatrics, and Social Service Review.
Professor Pollack has been appointed to two committees of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. He received his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University. He holds master's and doctorate degrees in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Before coming to SSA, Professor Pollack was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Yale University and taught Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Sherle Schwenninger
Sherle Schwenninger directs the New America Foundation's Economic Growth Program, and the Global Middle Class Initiative. He is also the former director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program. Mr. Schwenninger was Founding Editor of World Policy Journal from 1983 to 1992, and served as Director of the World Policy Institute at The New School from 1992 to 1996. He was also Director of the Institute's Policy Studies Program and its Transnational Academic Program. More recently, Mr. Schwenninger served as Senior Program Coordinator for the Project on Development, Trade, and International Finance at the Council on Foreign Relations, and is the author, with Walter Russell Mead, of the CFR publication A Financial Architecture for Middle-Class-Oriented Development. He is also a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute. Mr. Schwenninger writes and speaks frequently on questions of American foreign policy and international economic strategy.