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 Social Security and pensions. In May 2001, he was appointed by President Bush to be the executive director of the President’s bipartisan Commission to Strengthen Social Security. Mr. Blahous served as the executive director of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security (AWRS) from June 2000 through February 2001. Mr.Blahous served as policy director for Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) from 1996–2000. While staffing the senator’s policy initiatives in a wide range of legislative areas, Mr. Blahous focused on Social Security reform, including the senator’s chairmanship of the National Commission on Retirement Policy, a bipartisan, bicameral public/private commission convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Before joining Senator Gregg in 1996, Mr. Blahous served as legislative director for Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.). During his time with Senator Simpson, Mr. Blahous staffed the senator’s work on the President’s Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, co-chaired by Senators Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.), and John Danforth (R-Mo.). Blahous first joined Senator Simpson’s staff in 1989 as a congressional science fellow, sponsored by the American Physical Society. Mr. Blahous is a frequent author and speaker on Social Security reform issues and published a book entitled Reforming Social Security for Ourselves and Our Posterity (Praeger Publishers, 2000). As a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, he has published several articles on baseball, appearing in journals ranging from The Baseball Research Journal to USA Today Baseball Weekly.

Kent Smetters is visiting scholar at AEI and a tenured associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for the U.S. Congress from 1995 to 1998 before joining the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 as an assistant professor. Mr. Smetters was the Kaiser Visiting Professor of Economics at the Stanford University Economics Department 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. Mr. Smetters remains active in Washington, D.C. 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.