Speaker Biographies

Charles P. Blahous joined the National Economic Council on February 26, 2001. He is a special assistant to the president for economic policy, focusing on retirement policy, including Social Security and employer-provided pensions. In May 2001, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the executive director of the bipartisan President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security. Blahous served from June 2000 through February 2001 as the executive director of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, a coalition of approximately forty organizations that favor reforming the Social Security system according to six principles, including the establishment of personal accounts. Blahous served as policy director for Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) from 1996–2000, in which capacity he focused on Social Security reform. Before joining Senator Gregg in 1996, Blahous served as legislative director for Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-WY). During his time with Senator Simpson, Blahous staffed the senator’s work on the President’s Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. Blahous is a frequent author and speaker on Social Security reform issues, and has published a book entitled Reforming Social Security for Ourselves and Our Posterity, released in September 2000.

John Sabelhaus is unit chief for long-term modeling at the Congressional Budget Office and an adjunct in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. He held various positions at Towson University, the Urban Institute, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) before helping to launch the long-term modeling effort at the CBO in 1999. He is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Michigan Retirement Research Center Board of Outside Scholars.

Kent Smetters is an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for the U.S. Congress from 1995–98 before joining the University in Pennsylvania in 1998 as an assistant professor. He was the Kaiser Visiting Professor of Economics in the Economics Department at Stanford University during the 2000–01 academic year. He was appointed deputy assistant secretary for economic policy of the U.S. Treasury on July 3, 2001, where he served until August 30, 2002. He remains active in Washington, DC, and recently served as a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Dynamic Scoring for the Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress.

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