Speaker biographies

Alex Brill is a research fellow at AEI. A former senior advisor and chief economist to the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Brill also served on the staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). In Congress and at the CEA, Brill worked on a variety of economic and legislative policy issues, including dividend taxation, the alternative minimum tax, international tax policy, social security reform, defined benefit pension reform, and U.S. trade policy.

David Gustafson is the chief policy actuary at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the director of the Policy, Research, and Analysis Department, where he supervises a team of actuaries and economists. He is responsible for determining the actuarial policy for the Corporation in such areas as legislative and regulatory development, premium and claim determinations, and computer modeling and forecasting. Mr. Gustafson was responsible for developing the minimum funding reforms in the Pension Protection Act of 1987 and the reforms passed at the end of 1994 as part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He also played a major role in the development of the George W. Bush administration’s funding and premium reform proposals that were introduced in 2005 and that formed the basis for the funding reforms in the Pension Protection Act of 2006. In 1990, Mr. Gustafson completed a year-long Congressional Fellowship as a professional staffer for a member of the Senate Finance and Senate Labor and Human Resources Committees.

Bill Thomas, the former chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, is a visiting fellow at AEI. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1978 to 2007, most recently representing California’s 22nd Congressional District, which covered most of Kern and San Luis Obispo Counties and part of Los Angeles County. Mr. Thomas was elected chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in January 2001 and served until January 2007. During his chairmanship, he guided the enactment of $2 trillion in tax relief, including the Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act of 2001, which reduced all ordinary income tax rates; the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act of 2003, which reduced the tax rate on dividends and capital gains; and the Job Creation Act of 2004, which made significant reforms in corporate tax policy. Prior to his election as chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Thomas served as chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. He was also chairman of the House Administration Committee from 1995 to 2001. Before entering Congress, he was a faculty member at Bakersfield Community College and a member of the California State Assembly.

Mark J. Warshawsky is director of retirement research at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. He is a recognized thought leader on pensions, social security, insurance, and health care financing. Prior to joining Watson Wyatt, Mr. Warshawsky was assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, director of research at TIAA-CREF, and a senior economist at the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He is a member of the Social Security Advisory Board for a term lasting through 2012, and he is also on the advisory board of the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School. Mr. Warshawsky has written numerous articles, books and working papers, and has testified before Congress on pensions, annuities, and other economic issues.

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