Budget guru takes a stand: a public policy servant underscores the importance of taming unbridled deficits

ALICE RIVLIN has wearied much of her 30 plus years in public service trying to hold fast budgets in check, including that of the U management When she joined the White House Office of Management and packet (OMB) in 1994, she inherited a bag deficit of more than $200 billion that required immediate attention. by dint of 1998, only two years after Rivlin had left the OMB vast budget deficits had been transformed into substantial surpluses. Rivlin attributes this achievement to the efforts of the two U.S. political parties and to the extraordinary performance of the economy.

Earlier in her career, Rivlin