Alice Rivlin, budget maestro who 'helped save' Washington in fiscal crisis, dies at 88
Source: Washington Post
Obituaries
Alice Rivlin, budget maestro who helped save Washington in fiscal crisis, dies at 88
By Elaine S. Povich
May 14 at 2:54 PM
Alice M. Rivlin, a master of budgetary policy who held senior positions in the executive and legislative branches of government notably as founding director of the Congressional Budget Office and whose stewardship of the D.C. Financial Control Board guided the once-insolvent city to solid financial footing, died May 14 at her home in Washington. She was 88. ... The cause was cancer, said her son Douglas Rivlin.
Dr. Rivlin, a centrist Democratic economist known for evenhanded analysis and an unflappable demeanor, weaved in and out of government service over a career spanning more than five decades. During her long affiliation with the Brookings Institution in Washington, she did not push a particular school of economic thought but rather served as a moderating influence on politically driven ideologies.
She was the decathlete of public policy, said Robert Reischauer, an economist who helped Dr. Rivlin set up the Congressional Budget Office in 1975 and later headed the agency. There is almost no area of public policy where she wasnt active and contributing at a very high level, and thats extremely unusual.
As head of the Congressional Budget Office from 1975 to 1983, Dr. Rivlin weathered intense political headwinds and set the agency on course to be Congresss highly respected arbiter of fiscal policy. In 1994, President Bill Clinton made her the first female director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. From 1996 to 1999, she was vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.
She had long led analysis of the District of Columbias increasingly precarious financial condition. In 1990, she headed a commission that warned of imminent financial crisis and called for drastic measures to alleviate a projected deficit of up to $700 million in 1996.
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Alice Rivlin, budget maestro who "helped save" Washington in fiscal crisis, dies at 88