Alice Rivlin

Alice Mitchell Rivlin (born Georgianna Alice

Mitchell; March 4, 1931 – May 14, 2019) was an Alice Rivlin
American economist and budget official. She served as
the 16th vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to
1999. Before her appointment to the Federal Reserve,
Rivlin was named director of the Office of
Management and Budget in the Clinton administration
from 1994 to 1996. Prior to that, she was instrumental
in the establishment of the Congressional Budget
Office and became its founding director from 1975 to
1983. A member of the Democratic Party, Rivlin was
the first woman to hold either of those posts.

While not in government, Rivlin was a senior fellow

for Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and
a visiting professor at the McCourt School of Public Chair of the District of Columbia Financial
Control Board
Policy of Georgetown University. She was a noted
expert on the U.S. federal budget and macroeconomic In office
policy; and co-chaired, with retired U.S. Senator Pete September 1, 1998 – September 30, 2001
Domenici (R-NM), the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Preceded by Andrew Brimmer
Reduction Task Force.[1] Succeeded by Position abolished
16th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve
In office
Early life and education June 25, 1996 – July 16, 1999

Georgianna Alice Mitchell was born in Philadelphia to President Bill Clinton

a Jewish family, the daughter of Georgianna Peck Preceded by Alan Blinder
(Fales)[2] and Allan C. G. Mitchell.[3] She was the Succeeded by Roger Ferguson
granddaughter of astronomer Samuel Alfred
Member of the Federal Reserve Board of
Mitchell.[4] She grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, Governors
where her father was on the faculty of Indiana In office
University.[5] She briefly attended University High June 25, 1996 – July 16, 1999
School in Bloomington before leaving to attend high
President Bill Clinton
school at Madeira School. She then went on to study at
Bryn Mawr College. Initially, she wanted to major in Preceded by Alan Blinder
history, but after taking an economics course at Indiana Succeeded by Mark W. Olson
University, she decided to change her major to 30th Director of the Office of Management
economics.[6] and Budget
In office
October 17, 1994 – April 26, 1996
President Bill Clinton
Rivlin earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1952, writing her Preceded by Leon Panetta
senior thesis on the economic integration of Western Succeeded by Franklin Raines
Europe, and upon graduation, she moved to Europe
1st Director of the Congressional Budget
where she worked on the Marshall Plan. Originally, Office
Rivlin wanted to attend graduate school in public In office
administration but was rejected on the grounds that she February 24, 1975 – August 31, 1983
was a woman of marriageable age. Rivlin earned a
Preceded by Position established
Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College of Harvard
University in 1958.[6] Succeeded by Rudolph G. Penner
Personal details
Born Georgianna Alice Mitchell
Career March 4, 1931
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Alice Rivlin was affiliated several times with the U.S.
Brookings Institution, including stints in 1957–1966,
Died May 14, 2019 (aged 88)
1969–1975, 1983–1993, and 1999 to her death. She
Washington, D.C., U.S.
was a visiting professor at Georgetown University's
McCourt School of Public Policy. From 1968 to 1969, Political party Democratic
she was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as Spouses Lewis Rivlin
​
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, ​(m. 1955; div. 1977)​
United States Department of Health, Education, and Sidney G. Winter ​(m. 1989)​
Welfare. In 1971 she authored Systematic Thinking for
Children 3
Social Action. She was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973.[7] Relatives Allan C. G. Mitchell (father)
Samuel Alfred Mitchell
Rivlin was the first director of the newly established (grandfather)
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) during 1975– Education Bryn Mawr College (BA)
1983. As head of the CBO, she was a persistent and Harvard University (MA, PhD)
vociferous critic of Reaganomics. She was named a
1983 MacArthur Fellow in recognition of her role as
CBO creator. After that Dr. Rivlin served as the deputy director of
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from 1993 to 1994 and
was elevated to OMB director from 1994 to 1996 both in the
Clinton administration. President Clinton nominated her as the
Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. Upon
confirmation, Rivlin became the highest-ranked woman in the
history of the Federal Reserve at that time. She was also chair of
the District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and
Management Assistance Authority from 1998 to 2001.[5][8] The Federal Reserve Board of
Governors in 1997. Rivlin is seated
In 2012, she received a Foremother Award from the National far left.

Research Center for Women & Families.[9]

Rivlin was on the board of directors at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute
was created at the University of Arizona after the tragic shooting of former Congresswoman Gabrielle
Giffords in 2011, that killed 6 people and wounded 13 others.[10]

Debt reduction/fiscal management panels in 2010

Rivlin and former Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) were named in January 2010 to chair a Debt Reduction
Task Force, sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.[11]

Rivlin soon thereafter was named by President Obama to his 18-member bipartisan National Commission
on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform panel chaired by former Senator Alan K. Simpson, (R-WY), and
former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles (D), commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles
Commission. The balance of the panel is three more members appointed by the President, six members of
the United States House of Representatives, and six members of the United States Senate. The
commission first met on April 27, 2010, and had a December report deadline.[12] A health-care
component of the overall U.S. federal and state fiscal-management challenge was addressed by a panel
including Rivlin on The Diane Rehm Show in June.[13]

Along with former Comptroller General David Walker, Rivlin danced the Harlem Shake in a video
produced by The Can Kicks Back, a nonpartisan group that aims to organize millennials to pressure
lawmakers to address the United States' $16.4 trillion debt.[14] The video concludes with her making an
importuned plea to the twenty-somethings seated around the room: "There's no dancing around the fact
that more needs to be done quickly to put our future debt on a downward track. But our leaders need to
hear from you."

Personal life
Rivlin was of Cornish ancestry.[15] In 1955, she married former
Justice Department attorney Lewis Allen Rivlin of the Rivlin
family, with whom she had three children;[16] they divorced in
1977, although she kept his surname professionally.[17] In 1989, she
married economist Sidney G. Winter.[5] She died in Washington, Rivlin in 2011
D.C., on May 14, 2019, aged 88.[5][18]

Awards
Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, 1987[19]
First winner of the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award, 1998[20]
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize winner, 2008[21] from the American Academy of Political and
Social Science
Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research, 2012[22]
 One of the members of the inaugural class of the Government Hall of Fame, 2019,
posthumous[23]

Bibliography
Rivlin, Alice (1971). Systematic Thinking for Social Action (https://archive.org/details/system
aticthinki00rivl). USA: Brookings Institution. ISBN 978-0815774778.
Rivlin, Alice (1988). Caring for the Disabled Elderly: Who Will Pay?. USA: Brookings
Institution. ISBN 978-0815774983.
Rivlin, Alice (1992). Reviving the American Dream: The Economy, the States, and the
Federal Government (https://archive.org/details/revivingamerican00rivl). USA: Brookings
Institution. ISBN 978-0815791683.

See also
List of female United States Cabinet members

References
1. "Alice M. Rivlin | Bipartisan Policy Center" (http://bipartisanpolicy.org/person/alice-m-rivlin/).
Bipartisanpolicy.org. January 3, 2018. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
2. "Who's who in America: Supplement to Who's who, a current biographical reference service"
(https://books.google.com/books?id=baoSAAAAIAAJ&q=Georgianna+Peck+Fales). 1940.
3. "Alice Rivlin, Fed vice chair who was deficit hawk, dies at 88" (https://www.pionline.com/artic
le/20190514/ONLINE/190519916/alice-rivlin-fed-vice-chair-who-was-deficit-hawk-dies-at-8
8). Pensions & Investments. May 14, 2019. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
4. "Samuel A. Mitchell - Director, 1913-1945" (https://web.archive.org/web/20210121033930/ht
tps://faculty.virginia.edu/mccormick-observatory/mitchell.html). faculty.virginia.edu. Archived
from the original (http://faculty.virginia.edu/mccormick-observatory/mitchell.html) on January
21, 2021. Retrieved May 16, 2019.
5. Hershey Jr., Robert D. (May 14, 2019). "Alice M. Rivlin, Leading Government Economist,
Dies at 88" (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/obituaries/alice-m-rivlin-dead.html). The
New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0362-4331). Retrieved
May 15, 2019.
6. "American Economic Association" (https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/committees/cswep/a
bout/awards/bell/rivlin). www.aeaweb.org. Retrieved May 15, 2019.
7. "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter R" (http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMe
mbers/ChapterR.pdf) (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 7,
2011.
8. Rivlin Wants to Aid Home Rule (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/librar
y/dc/control/district0911.htm)
9. "Previous Foremother Awards | Center for Research" (https://archive.today/2013041413043
2/http://center4research.org/news-events/previous-foremother-awards/). Archived from the
original (http://center4research.org/news-events/previous-foremother-awards/) on April 14,
2013. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
10. "Alice Rivlin" (http://nicd.arizona.edu/members/alice-rivlin). National Institute for Civil
Discourse. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
11. " "The Domenici/Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force" by Kathryn Nix" (http://blog.heritage.org/
2010/01/26/the-domenicirivlin-debt-reduction-task-force/). The Foundry. The Heritage
Foundation. January 26, 2010. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100128150819/htt
p://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/26/the-domenicirivlin-debt-reduction-task-force/) from the
original on January 28, 2010. Retrieved January 27, 2010.
12. "White House: Getting to the Root Causes of Our Fiscal Challenges" (https://obamawhiteho
use.archives.gov/blog/2010/04/27/getting-root-causes-our-fiscal-challenges).
whitehouse.gov. April 27, 2010. Retrieved May 14, 2019 – via National Archives.
13. "Medicare Reimbursment [sic] Rates and Deficit Spending" (http://thedianerehmshow.org/sh
ows/2010-06-15/medicare-reimbursment-rates-and-deficit-spending) with Stuart Guterman
of The Commonwealth Fund, Ron Pollack of Families USA, and Brian Riedl of The Heritage
Foundation, The Diane Rehm Show, June 15, 2010. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
14. Ashton, Kevin (March 28, 2013). "How Memes Are Orchestrated by the Man" (https://www.th
eatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/how-memes-are-orchestrated-by-the-man/27446
6/). The Atlantic.
15. Paulette Olson, Engendering Economics: Conversations With Women Economists in the
United States, Routledge, March 29, 2002
16. STEVEN GREENHOUSE (June 28, 1994). "SHAKE-UP AT THE WHITE HOUSE: BUDGET
DIRECTOR Woman in the News; A Hawk on Budgets – Alice Mitchell Rivlin – The New York
Times" (https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/28/us/shake-up-white-house-budget-director-wo
man-hawk-budgets-alice-mitchell-rivlin.html). The New York Times. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
17. Chicago Tribune: "Ex-husband of Fed official ordered to pay $6.5 million" (https://www.chica
gotribune.com/2001/08/29/ex-husband-of-fed-official-ordered-to-pay-65-million/) August 29,
2001
18. Kurtzleben, Danielle (May 14, 2019). "Alice Rivlin, First Woman To Serve As Budget
Director, Dies At Age 88" (https://www.npr.org/2019/05/14/695947928/alice-rivlin-first-woman
-to-serve-as-budget-director-dies-at-age-88). NPR.org. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
19. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement" (https://achievement.or
g/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#business). www.achievement.org. American Academy of
Achievement.
20. "American Economic Association" (https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/committees/cswep/a
bout/awards/bell). www.aeaweb.org. Retrieved May 15, 2019.
21. "2008" (https://www.aapss.org/the-moynihan-prize/previous-prize-winners/2008-2/). AAPSS.
June 28, 2016. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
22. "Foremother and Health Policy Hero Awards Luncheon" (http://www.center4research.org/for
emother-health-policy-hero-awards/). National Center for Health Research. May 7, 2018.
Retrieved May 15, 2019.
23. Tom Shoop. "Inaugural Inductees Into Government Hall of Fame Unveiled - Government
Executive" (https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/08/inaugural-inductees-governme
nt-hall-fame-unveiled/159156/). Govexec.com. Retrieved August 16, 2019.

External links
Home page at the Brookings Institution (https://web.archive.org/web/20000902200517/htt
p://www.brookings.edu/scholars/arivlin.htm)
Appearances (https://www.c-span.org/person/?3316) on C-SPAN
Interview with the Minneapolis Fed (https://web.archive.org/web/20051031041305/http://min
neapolisfed.org/pubs/region/97-06/rivlin.cfm)
Interview with Federal Reserve (https://web.archive.org/web/20150523195042/https://www.a
eaweb.org/committees/cswep/newsletters/CSWEP_nsltr_Spring-Summer1998.pdf)
 Testimony of Alice Rivlin to Congress, October 5, 1977, on the potential energy savings of
urban transportation. (https://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5301&type=0) Archived (https://w
eb.archive.org/web/20120127211200/http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5301&type=0)
January 27, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
Alice Rivlin profile at LittleSis (http://littlesis.org/person/8522/Alice_M_Rivlin)
Statements and Speeches of Alice M. Rivlin (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/907)
"Alice Rivlin" (https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=au%3A%22Alice+Rivlin%
22+&acc=off&wc=on&fc=off&group=none). JSTOR.

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