Speaker biographies
Leonard E. Burman is director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University. Mr. Burman served as deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for tax analysis from 1998 to 2000 and as senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1988 to 1997. He is the author of a book, The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide for the Perplexed (Brookings Institution Press, 1999), and numerous articles, studies, and reports. He is also a commentator for NPR’s Marketplace. In his recent research, he has examined the individual alternative minimum tax; the changing role of taxation in social policy; and tax incentives for savings, retirement, and health insurance.
Jane G. Gravelle is a senior specialist in economic policy in the Government and Finance Division of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). She specializes in the economics of taxation, particularly the effects of tax policies on economic growth and resource allocation. Recent papers have addressed consumption taxes, dynamic revenue estimating, investment subsidies, capital gains taxes, individual retirement accounts, estate and gift taxes, family tax issues, charitable contributions, and corporate taxation. In addition to her work at CRS, Ms. Gravelle is the author of numerous articles in books and professional journals, including recent papers on the tax burdens across families and tax reform proposals. She is the author of The Economic Effects of Taxing Capital Income (MIT Press, 1994) and coeditor of The Encyclopedia of Taxation and Tax Policy (Urban Institute Press, 1999). She is the editor of the Tax Expenditure Compendium, published every two years by the Senate Budget Committee. Ms. Gravelle is past president of the National Tax Association and received the association’s public service award in 2007.
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 the Columbia Business School. 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 also served as a policy consultant to the 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 Toward Fundamental Tax Reform (AEI Press, 2005). He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, 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.
Thomas L. Hungerford is a specialist in public finance at the Congressional Research Service. He has also worked at the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Social Security Administration. His research interests include tax policy, income inequality and mobility, social welfare policy, and the economics and demography of aging.
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