Against a backdrop of partisan rancor and stalemate in the nation’s capital, prominent economist Alice Rivlin will give a free public lecture titled “Facing Economic Challenges and Polarized Politics” on Monday, March 18 at 5 p.m. at the University of Vermont in Memorial Lounge, Waterman Building.

Rivlin is a longtime veteran of the budget wars in Washington. She was director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton and was the first director of the Congressional Budget Office. An expert on fiscal and monetary policy, she also served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Bank.   

Rivlin is fully engaged in the current fiscal debate. She co-chaired the Debt Reduction Task Force sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2010 and was named to the Simpson Bowles National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by President Barak Obama.

“Alice Rivlin will provide unique insight into the partisan budget debate being played out in Congress. Her experience in both the legislative and executive branches of government in several administrations has enabled her to become a voice of reason,” said former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin, a UVM Marsh Professor–at-Large and co-sponsor of the lecture.        

“Rivlin played an important role in helping the Clinton administration achieve a budget surplus,” she added. “She has most recently been involved in two deficit reduction commissions and brings both enormous knowledge and experience to this topic.”

Rivlin is currently a senior fellow and director of the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. She won a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship in 1983. 

The lecture is co-sponsored by the UVM Department of Economics.