1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
The American tax system stands at a crossroads. In addition to longstanding arguments over the tax code and budget deficits, there are new concerns raised by Washington's expensive stimulus plan, by proposals to address global warming, and by the scheduled expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts at the
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end of 2010. In Tax Policy Lessons from the 2000s (AEI Press, February 2009), fourteen well-known economists explore the role taxes should play in setting environmental policy, the effect of tax rate increases on decisions to work and on the determination of taxable income, the economic impact of tax cuts that add to the deficit, and the effect of the tax system on businesses' financial and investment decisions.
At this event, AEI's Alan D. Viard, editor and coauthor of Tax Policy Lessons from the 2000s, will provide an overview of the book and its implications for current policy issues. Independent perspectives will be offered by Rosanne Altshuler, codirector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, and Daniel Shaviro, the Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation at the New York University School of Law. AEI's Kevin A. Hassett will moderate.
| 8:30 a.m. |
Registration and Breakfast | |
| 9:00 | Panelists: | Rosanne Altshuler, Urban Institute |
| Daniel Shaviro, New York University School of Law |
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| Alan D. Viard, AEI | ||
| Moderator: | Alex Brill, AEI |
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| 10:30 | Adjournment | |
Speaker biographies
Rosanne Altshuler is codirector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Ms. 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 adviser to the Joint Committee on Taxation. She has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Treasury Department and Canadian Department of Finance. Ms. Altshuler has published numerous articles on the economics of taxation and edited the National Tax Journal from 2001 through 2006.
Alex Brill is a research fellow at AEI. Prior to joining AEI in 2007, he served for five years on the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, where he was chief economist and senior adviser to the chairman. In this capacity, he led the staff in work on major tax, pension, trade, and health legislation and oversaw efforts to expand the analytical capability of the Joint Committee on Taxation's revenue-estimating process. In addition to providing legislative and policy counsel to the chairman, Mr. Brill advised committee members about the effects of various tax, trade, health, and Social Security proposals and general economic trends. Prior to his work for the committee, he served on the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Brill began his career in Washington as a research assistant at AEI. He has written on a variety of tax policy issues.
Daniel Shaviro is one of the nation's leading legal scholars on tax policy. He currently serves as the Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation at the New York University School of Law. Previously, he spent three years in private practice at Caplin & Drysdale, a leading tax specialty firm, and three years as legislation attorney at the Joint Committee on Taxation, where he worked extensively on the Tax Reform Act of 1986. In 1987, Mr. Shaviro began his teaching career at the University of Chicago Law School, and he joined the New York University School of Law in 1995. His scholarly work examines tax policy, budget policy, and entitlements issues. He has published numerous books, including Taxes, Spending, and the U.S. Government's March Towards Bankruptcy (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Who Should Pay for Medicare? (University of Chicago Press, 2004), Making Sense of Social Security Reform (University of Chicago Press, 2000), When Rules Change: An Economic and Political Analysis of Transition Relief and Retroactivity (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and Do Deficits Matter? (University of Chicago Press, 1997).
Alan D. Viard is a resident scholar at AEI. Prior to joining AEI, he was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and an assistant professor of economics at Ohio State University. He has also worked for the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis, the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and the Joint Committee on Taxation. Mr. Viard has written on a wide variety of tax and budget issues.
