Jessica Riedl

Jessica Riedl is a budget and tax fellow at the Brookings Institution, in the Tax Policy Center. Earlier, Riedl spent six years as chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and as staff director of the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth. She has also served as a leading budget and tax research fellow at the Manhattan Institute (2017-2025) as well as the Heritage Foundation (2001-2011).

Riedl’s campaign experience includes serving as the director of budget and spending policy for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, and as the lead architect of the 10-year deficit-reduction plan for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

A prolific researcher, Riedl has published nearly 600 studies and articles since 2001 on federal spending, taxes, deficits, and economic policy, and has assisted in the writing of several New York Times best-selling books. She often testifies before Congress, works directly with congressional leaders, and briefs top-tier presidential candidates on fiscal and economic policy. Additionally, Riedl is frequently sought out nationally as a popular public speaker on unsustainable federal spending and deficit trends.

Riedl’s op-eds are regularly published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Post, Politico, CNN.com,  Dispatch, and elsewhere. Her economic policy expertise is cited hundreds of times annually by reporters and columnists in top national newspapers and magazines. Riedl regularly discusses economic policy on all major TV networks, as well as high-profile radio programs and podcasts.

Washingtonian Magazine named Riedl one of the 500 most influential policy professionals in Washington D.C.—including one of the 26 most influential within economic policy—in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Riedl holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University.