View Research by Author - Robert D. Reischauer

Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/RobertDReischauer

Two former directors of the Congressional Budget Office now at the Urban Institute join scholars from other organizations in a memo advising President Obama on how to balance the nation’s short- and long-term economic needs. To reduce escalating future deficits without endangering near-term recovery, the authors’ recommendations include action to stem the growth of Social Security and Medicare.

In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, UI's president and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, discusses remedies for the nation's two serious --and diametrically opposed --fiscal challenges: the immediate, short-run problems of economic recession, and the issue of long-term fiscal sustainability.

The authors of this paper—longtime federal budget and policy experts—were drawn together by a deep concern about the nation's long-term fiscal outlook. Despite diverse philosophies and political leanings, they found solid common ground and agree that unsustainable deficits in the federal budget threaten the health and vigor of the American economy and the first step toward establishing budget responsibility is to reform the budget decision process so that the major drivers of escalating deficits—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—are no longer on autopilot. The paper provides specific policy recommendations and outlines the reasons action is critical.

The presidents of three research organizations, including the Urban Institute, dispel misinformation about the methodology to be used in a study of the Upward Bound program.

The recent fiscal situation and the intermediate-term budget outlook may appear relatively benign, Urban Institute President Robert Reischauer told the Senate Budget Committee, but deficits and debt will gradually grow to unprecedented and unsustainable levels if current tax and spending policies are not altered significantly. "The challenge we face," he said, "is determining how to balance our desire for improved health against our other priorities. We cannot have it all and ask our children and grandchildren to pick up the tab." The longer policymakers wait to act, the more wrenching the adjustments will have to be.

[The Washington Times] The Maryland Opportunity Compact, a new public-private partnership to develop innovative prevention and early intervention programs, "represents a new approach to social service funding, one that is both revolutionary and common-sensical," writes Urban Institute President Robert Reischauer. A former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Reischauer discusses why the compact is a model initiative and how it could influence the ways other states and the federal government fund social service programs.

This article reviews and comments upon the Institute of Medicine’s recent call for universal health insurance and the four options IOM puts forward for getting there. The authors focus their comments on complications that arise in pursuing some of those options, involving benefits and geographic variations and costs. The complications suggest that the IOM's cost estimates may be too low and that there may be sizable political barriers to the proposals. (Health Affairs March/April 2004 - Volume 23, Number 2

[Los Angeles Times] As they struggle to craft a compromise Medicare bill, members of Congress are facing an unusually contentious and politically explosive issue: Whether the time has come to charge higher-income elderly Americans more than they charge the less affluent for the benefits they receive under Medicare.

[The New York Times] In its headlong rush to provide a prescription drug benefit for the elderly and disabled, Congress risks abandoning a fundamental principle that has been a hallmark of Medicare since the program's inception in 1966. That principle—universality—ensures that all Medicare beneficiaries, no matter where they live or what their financial circumstances, are eligible for the same basic benefits.

Urban Institute president, Robert Reischauer, testifies before Congress on some of the challenges facing the Congress as it makes its decisions about the fiscal 2003 budget.

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