Speaker Biographies
Alex M. Brill is the senior advisor to Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), watching over the day-to-day management of bills under the committee's jurisdiction, assisting the chairman in working through House members' concerns, and providing the technical insight lawmakers need to make decisions on legislation. He also serves as the committee's chief economist, providing advice on the economic impact of legislation being considered by the committee, and monitoring overall trends in the economy. Mr. Brill joined the committee in January 2002. Prior to joining Ways and Means, he worked as an economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he handled a variety of macroeconomic policy issues, including economic forecasting and tax policy. Mr. Brill also held a position researching tax policy at AEI.
Robert Carroll was appointed deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the Treasury Department in November 2003. He provides economic advice and analysis to the administration on all aspects of the economics of federal taxation, and is responsible for the development, analysis, and implementation of tax policies and programs. Previously, Mr. Carroll was a visiting scholar with the Congressional Budget Office and also served as senior economist in public finance with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), where he provided economic analysis on a variety of issues, including the President’s Jobs and Growth Act, tax reform, tax simplification, investment incentives, international taxation, retirement security, and the distributional effects of taxes. Prior to joining the CEA, Mr. Carroll was a staff economist with the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis for much of the 1990s, and also worked for Ernst & Young, LLP in 1995 and 1996.
Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI. He is also a weekly columnist for Bloomberg. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He was an economic adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2000 primaries. He has served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including the AEI Press book on tax reform, Toward Fundamental Tax Reform (2005). He has published scholarly articles in The American Economic Review, The Economic Journal, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.
Craig Johnson is a financial economist in the Office of Tax Analysis in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he has served since 2000 in the business and international tax division.
Rudolph G. Penner is a senior fellow and holds the Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Public Policy at the Urban Institute. Previously, he was a managing director of the Barents Group, a KPMG company. Mr. Penner was director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987. From 1977 to 1983, he was a resident scholar at AEI. Mr. Penner’s previous posts in government include assistant director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget, deputy assistant secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers. Before 1975, he was a professor of economics at the University of Rochester. Mr. Penner is the author of numerous books, pamphlets, and articles on tax and spending policy, and has authored columns for various newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. His most recent book, coauthored with Isabel Sawhill and Timothy Taylor, is Updating America's Social Contract (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000).
Phillip L. Swagel is a resident scholar at AEI. Before joining AEI in March 2005, he was the chief of staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He has previously been a senior economist at the Council, a visiting assistant professor at Northwestern University, and an economist at the Federal Reserve Board and the International Monetary Fund. He has written on international trade policy, the political economy of the welfare state, and most recently on Social Security.
