Red Ink and Bad Blood: What Do Federal Budget Politics Mean for the Next President and You?

Fiscal cliff. Taxmaggedon. Debt default. The Great Recession. Political gridlock. Sequestration. The making — or unmaking — of the federal budget is at play with each of these. Making sense of it all is the focus of David Wessel’s new book, Red Ink: Inside the High Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget.

On October 22, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center will host a discussion with: David Wessel, two-time co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize, economics editor for The Wall Street Journal and writer of the “Capital” column; Brookings Senior Fellow Alice Rivlin, co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, founding director of the Congressional Budget Office, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, and former vice-chair of the Federal Reserve; Joseph Minarik, senior vice president and director of research at the Committee for Economic Development, and former chief economist of the Office of Management and Budget and the House Budget Committee; and Eugene Steuerle, the Richard B. Fisher Chair at the Urban Institute,co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and a former deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for tax analysis.

A light breakfast will be available at 8:30. The forum begins promptly at 9:00 am. David Wessel’s book will be on sale.