Bio
I spent more than 14 years in economic policy roles advising senior elected officials, including for a time as the senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush. As Deputy Director and then Director of the White House National Economic Council, I coordinated economic policy design and implementation for the President.
The last thirteen months of my time in the White House were by far the most intense, helping advise President Bush on his Administration’s response to the financial crisis.
In addition to that work, here are some of the major Presidential policies that I helped design, enact, and implement:
- the 2003 law that cut taxes on income, capital gains, dividends, marriage, children, small businesses and estates;
- the 2008 economic stimulus, as well as tax cuts in 2004, 2005, and 2006;
- successfully opposing repeated Congressional efforts to raise taxes in 2007 and 2008;
- reforming the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;
- two energy laws that support nuclear power and other alternative energy technologies, and will reduce U.S. gasoline consumption 20 percent by 2017;
- eliminating the ban on offshore drilling for oil and natural gas;
- the “Major Economies” process that restructured global climate change negotiations to ensure participation by all large economies;
- creating Health Savings Accounts and implementing health policies to improve price and quality transparency;
- bringing private sector competition and market forces to Medicare and adding a prescription drug benefit;
- providing loans to U.S. auto manufacturers in 2008;
- coordinating the response to the 2002 West Coast Port Strike;
- coordinating the response to the 2002 Mad Cow disease outbreak;
- creating Terrorism Reinsurance after the 9/11 attacks; and
- the most popular economic policy change of President Bush’s tenure: the Do-Not-Call list.
- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid reform proposals, with the goal of making these entitlement programs sustainable over the long run;
- proposal for a standard tax deduction for health insurance and health insurance market reforms, to move toward market-based health care and make health insurance more affordable for tens of millions of Americans;
- proposal to make our farm programs less trade-distorting and more fiscally responsible; and
- proposals to make permanent the tax relief enacted in 2001 and 2003 and prevent future tax increases.
Before working for President Bush I was an aide to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). I helped him enact economic legislation (and block other legislation) including the 1997 Balanced Budget Act and President Bush’s 2001 tax cut. I came to Senator Lott’s staff from the Senate Budget Committee staff, where I spent two years as a health and retirement economist working for the Chairman, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM).
I’ve got a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a B.A.S. in Math and Political Science from Stanford.