1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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The late AEI economist Herbert Stein often remarked that "trends that can't continue, won't." As the nation's fiscal imbalance continues to worsen, Mr. Stein's proverbial wisdom has been referenced often. The question is, how will the balance be restored? In his new book The New American Economy: The Failure of
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Reaganomics and a New Way Forward (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), economist Bruce Bartlett declares that tax increases are inevitable in order to reel in the nation's rising deficit and to prevent the return of 1970s-era stagflation. The conservative policy of "starving the beast" by denying revenue to the government has not worked. Mr. Bartlett argues that conservatives should chart a "new way forward" for the American economy by seeking to restore balance with more efficient, if not smaller, taxes. He makes the case for the value-added tax as the most effective way to raise necessary revenues and a better alternative to raising marginal tax rates on income.
At this event, Mr. Bartlett will present an overview of his proposal. New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt, AEI resident scholar Norman J. Ornstein, and AEI visiting scholar Bill Thomas will discuss Mr. Bartlett's recommendations. AEI's director of economic policy studies, Kevin A. Hassett, will moderate.
| 9:45 a.m. | Registration | |
| 10:00 | Presenter: | Bruce Bartlett |
| Discussants: | David Leonhardt, New York Times | |
| Norman J. Ornstein, AEI | ||
| Bill Thomas, AEI | ||
| Moderator: | Kevin A. Hassett, AEI | |
| 11:30 | Adjournment |
Speaker biographies
Bruce Bartlett is an economic historian who has spent the last thirty years working in politics and public policy. He has served in numerous governmental positions, including as a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and a treasury official under President George H. W. Bush. Mr. Bartlett is a weekly columnist for Forbes.com and has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Commentary, and Fortune. He is also a frequent guest on NBC Nightly News, Nightline, CNN, CNBC, and Fox News Channel, among others.
David Leonhardt is an economics columnist for the New York Times. His column, "Economics Scene," appears on Wednesdays. Mr. Leonhardt has been writing about economics for the Times since 2000 and has been a columnist since 2006. He was one of the writers who produced the paper's 2005 series on social class in the United States. He is also a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and contributes to the Economix blog. Before coming to the Times, Mr. Leonhardt worked for Business Week in Chicago and New York and for the metro desk of the Washington Post.
Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. He also serves as an election analyst for CBS News and writes a weekly column called "Congress Inside Out" for Roll Call. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and other major publications, and he regularly appears on television programs such as Nightline, Charlie Rose, and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, where he was recently recognized as the most frequent guest over the program's thirty years. Mr. Ornstein's campaign finance working group of scholars and practitioners helped shape the major law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system. He serves as senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission and as codirector of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. Mr. Ornstein is a member of the boards of the Public Broadcasting Service, the Campaign Legal Center, and the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. His many books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (AEI Press, 2000) and The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Oxford University Press, 2006), both with Thomas E. Mann; Debt and Taxes: How America Got into Its Budget Mess and What to Do About It (AEI Press, 1994), with John H. Makin; and, most recently, Vital Statistics on Congress 2008 (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), with Michael Malbin and Thomas E. Mann.
Bill Thomas, former chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, is a visiting fellow at AEI. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1978 to 2007, most recently representing California's twenty-second congressional district, which covered most of Kern and San Luis Obispo Counties and part of Los Angeles County. Mr. Thomas served as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from January 2001 until January 2007. During his chairmanship, he guided the enactment of $2 trillion in tax relief, including the Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act of 2001, which reduced all ordinary income tax rates; the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act of 2003, which reduced the tax rate on dividends and capital gains; and the Job Creation Act of 2004, which provided significant reforms for corporate tax policy. Prior to his election as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Thomas served as chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. He was also chairman of the House Administration Committee from 1995 to 2001. Before entering Congress, he was a faculty member at Bakersfield Community College and a member of the California State Assembly.
Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a senior fellow at AEI. His research areas include the U.S. economy, energy and tax policy, and the stock market. Previously, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a professor at Columbia University, and policy consultant to the Treasury Department during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He also served as a top economic adviser to the George W. Bush and John McCain presidential campaigns.
