Alice Rivlin Explained

Alice Rivlin
Office:Chair of the District of Columbia Financial Control Board
Term Start:September 1, 1998
Term End:September 30, 2001
Predecessor:Andrew Brimmer
Successor:Position abolished
Office2:16th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve
President2:Bill Clinton
Term Start2:June 25, 1996
Term End2:July 16, 1999
Predecessor2:Alan Blinder
Successor2:Roger Ferguson
Office3:Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
President3:Bill Clinton
Term Start3:June 25, 1996
Term End3:July 16, 1999
Predecessor3:Alan Blinder
Successor3:Mark W. Olson
Office4:30th Director of the Office of Management and Budget
President4:Bill Clinton
Term Start4:October 17, 1994
Term End4:April 26, 1996
Predecessor4:Leon Panetta
Successor4:Franklin Raines
Office5:1st Director of the Congressional Budget Office
Term Start5:February 24, 1975
Term End5:August 31, 1983
Predecessor5:Position established
Successor5:Rudolph G. Penner
Birth Name:Georgianna Alice Mitchell
Birth Date:4 March 1931
Birth Place:Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Death Place:Washington, D.C., U.S.
Party:Democratic
Spouse:
    Children:3
    Relatives:Allan C. G. Mitchell (father)
    Samuel Alfred Mitchell (grandfather)
    Education:Bryn Mawr College (BA)
    Harvard University (MA, PhD)

    Alice Mitchell Rivlin (born Georgianna Alice Mitchell; March 4, 1931 – May 14, 2019) was an American economist and budget official. She served as the 16th vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. Before her appointment to the Federal Reserve, Rivlin was named director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration from 1994 to 1996. Prior to that, she was instrumental in the establishment of the Congressional Budget Office and became its founding director from 1975 to 1983. A member of the Democratic Party, Rivlin was the first woman to hold either of those posts.

    While not in government, Rivlin was a senior fellow for Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and a visiting professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University. She was a noted expert on the U.S. federal budget and macroeconomic policy; and co-chaired, with retired U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force.[1]

    Early life and education

    Georgianna Alice Mitchell was born in Philadelphia to a Jewish family, the daughter of Georgianna Peck (Fales)[2] and Allan C. G. Mitchell.[3] She was the granddaughter of astronomer Samuel Alfred Mitchell.[4] She grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, where her father was on the faculty of Indiana University. She briefly attended University High School in Bloomington before leaving to attend high school at Madeira School. She then went on to study at Bryn Mawr College. Initially, she wanted to major in history, but after taking an economics course at Indiana University, she decided to change her major to economics.[5]

    Rivlin earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1952, writing her senior thesis on the economic integration of Western Europe, and upon graduation, she moved to Europe where she worked on the Marshall Plan. Originally, Rivlin wanted to attend graduate school in public administration but was rejected on the grounds that she was a woman of marriageable age. Rivlin earned a Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1958.

    Career

    Alice Rivlin was affiliated several times with the Brookings Institution, including stints in 1957–1966, 1969–1975, 1983–1993, and 1999 to her death. She was a visiting professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. From 1968 to 1969, she was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1971 she authored Systematic Thinking for Social Action. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973.[6]

    Rivlin was the first director of the newly established Congressional Budget Office (CBO) during 1975–1983. As head of the CBO, she was a persistent and vociferous critic of Reaganomics. She was named a 1983 MacArthur Fellow in recognition of her role as CBO creator. After that Dr. Rivlin served as the deputy director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from 1993 to 1994 and was elevated to OMB director from 1994 to 1996 both in the Clinton administration. President Clinton nominated her as the Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. Upon confirmation, Rivlin became the highest-ranked woman in the history of the Federal Reserve at that time. She was also chair of the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority from 1998 to 2001.[7]

    In 2012, she received a Foremother Award from the National Research Center for Women & Families.[8]

    Rivlin was on the board of directors at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute was created at the University of Arizona after the tragic shooting of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, that killed 6 people and wounded 13 others.[9]

    Debt reduction/fiscal management panels in 2010

    Rivlin and former Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) were named in January 2010 to chair a Debt Reduction Task Force, sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.[10]

    Rivlin soon thereafter was named by President Obama to his 18-member bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform panel chaired by former Senator Alan K. Simpson, (R-WY), and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles (D), commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles Commission. The balance of the panel is three more members appointed by the President, six members of the United States House of Representatives, and six members of the United States Senate. The commission first met on April 27, 2010, and had a December report deadline.[11] A health-care component of the overall U.S. federal and state fiscal-management challenge was addressed by a panel including Rivlin on The Diane Rehm Show in June.[12]

    Along with former Comptroller General David Walker, Rivlin danced the Harlem Shake in a video produced by The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan group that aims to organize millennials to pressure lawmakers to address the United States' $16.4 trillion debt.[13] The video concludes with her making an importuned plea to the twenty-somethings seated around the room: "There's no dancing around the fact that more needs to be done quickly to put our future debt on a downward track. But our leaders need to hear from you."

    Personal life

    Rivlin was of Cornish ancestry.[14] In 1955, she married former Justice Department attorney Lewis Allen Rivlin of the Rivlin family, with whom she had three children;[15] they divorced in 1977, although she kept his surname professionally.[16] In 1989, she married economist Sidney G. Winter. She died in Washington, D.C., on May 14, 2019, aged 88.[17] [18]

    Awards

    Bibliography

    See also

    External links

    Notes and References

    1. Web site: Alice M. Rivlin | Bipartisan Policy Center . Bipartisanpolicy.org . January 3, 2018 . May 14, 2019.
    2. Web site: Who's who in America: Supplement to Who's who, a current biographical reference service. 1940.
    3. Web site: Alice Rivlin, Fed vice chair who was deficit hawk, dies at 88. 2019-05-14. Pensions & Investments. en. 2019-05-16.
    4. Web site: Samuel A. Mitchell - Director, 1913-1945. faculty.virginia.edu. 2019-05-16. January 21, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210121033930/https://faculty.virginia.edu/mccormick-observatory/mitchell.html. dead.
    5. Web site: American Economic Association. www.aeaweb.org. 2019-05-15.
    6. Web site: Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter R. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. April 7, 2011.
    7. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/control/district0911.htm Rivlin Wants to Aid Home Rule
    8. Web site: Previous Foremother Awards | Center for Research . January 3, 2013 . dead . https://archive.today/20130414130432/http://center4research.org/news-events/previous-foremother-awards/ . April 14, 2013 .
    9. Web site: Alice Rivlin. National Institute for Civil Discourse. August 28, 2017.
    10. Web site: "The Domenici/Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force" by Kathryn Nix . January 27, 2010 . January 26, 2010 . The Foundry . The Heritage Foundation . January 28, 2010. live . https://web.archive.org/web/20100128150819/http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/26/the-domenicirivlin-debt-reduction-task-force/.
    11. Web site: White House: Getting to the Root Causes of Our Fiscal Challenges . April 27, 2010 . . . May 14, 2019.
    12. http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-06-15/medicare-reimbursment-rates-and-deficit-spending "Medicare Rates and Deficit Spending"
    13. News: Ashton. Kevin. How Memes Are Orchestrated by the Man. The Atlantic. 28 March 2013.
    14. Paulette Olson, Engendering Economics: Conversations With Women Economists in the United States, Routledge, March 29, 2002
    15. Web site: STEVEN GREENHOUSE. SHAKE-UP AT THE WHITE HOUSE: BUDGET DIRECTOR Woman in the News; A Hawk on Budgets – Alice Mitchell Rivlin – The New York Times . . June 28, 1994 . May 14, 2019.
    16. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-08-29/business/0108290324_1_ecuadorian-alice-rivlin-million Chicago Tribune: "Ex-husband of Fed official ordered to pay $6.5 million"
    17. News: Alice M. Rivlin, Leading Government Economist, Dies at 88. Hershey Jr.. Robert D.. 2019-05-14. The New York Times. 2019-05-15. en-US. 0362-4331.
    18. Web site: Alice Rivlin, First Woman To Serve As Budget Director, Dies At Age 88 . NPR.org . May 14, 2019 . en . May 14, 2019. Kurtzleben . Danielle .
    19. Web site: Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement . www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
    20. Web site: American Economic Association. www.aeaweb.org. 2019-05-15.
    21. Web site: 2016-06-28 . 2008 . 2023-03-08 . AAPSS . en-US.
    22. Web site: Foremother and Health Policy Hero Awards Luncheon. 2018-05-07. National Center for Health Research. en-US. 2019-05-15.
    23. Web site: Tom Shoop . Inaugural Inductees Into Government Hall of Fame Unveiled - Government Executive . Govexec.com . 2019-08-16.