It’s not every day that a 76-year-old woman appears on national television and decries that, “the financial markets are cry babies.” And it’s certainly not every day that people stand up and react. But that’s exactly what happens when Alice Rivlin takes a jab at Wall Street – or the Federal Reserve, or Congress, for that matter. When CNBC asked her on the air last December, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) set investment bankers to shame, criticizing their complaints over the Fed’s decision not cut interest rates far enough to thwart the ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis.

“The public has to realize that there is no magic. No Mr. Fix-It. No single remedy,” said Rivlin.

It’s that kind of attitude that has gotten Rivlin far in an industry that has not always been accommodating of a female force like her, and in a job that may well constitute the hardest work on Capitol Hill.

Rivlin’s story begins long before she won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, or served as Vice Chair of the, Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors, or became Deputy Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Yet – for our purposes — it begins somewhere after she grew up the daughter of a physicist and earned her PhD from the elite Radcliffe College.

Not surprisingly, it is Rivlin’s term as the first director of the CBO that most fascinates us at OhMyGov! The office, charged with creating an enforceable blueprint for Congressional action on spending and revenue legislation, is unlike any other in Congress. And as its 1975 inaugural director, she was charged with the rather weighty task of realizing its purpose.

Prior to 1975, Congressional budget committees in the House and Senate created budget projections for policies that were notoriously lacking in clarity and accuracy. Thus, in the 94th congress — a mere 188 years after our nation’s founders institutionalized our democracy — an independent agency was at last created to improve upon the budgetary process. 

Like anything else in our beloved bureaucracy, it was not long after the CBO’s birth that a battle for control ensued over the budgeting machine. Rivlin’s appointment came under heated debate between the chairs of the respective House and Senate Budget Committees. Congressman Al Ullman on the House Committee had a particular objection to Rivlin.

 “Over his dead body was a woman going to head the CBO,” said Rivlin. 

Ironically, Ullman’s plan to keep a woman out of the seat would be quickly foiled by a scandal of its own. One fine night in Washington, D.C, the Rep. Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, lost his political authority after he was discovered in a scuffle with a stripper. When approached by a policeman, the stripper leapt out of the car and dashed into the nearby Tidal Basin.

The next morning, the story hit newspapers nation-wide, and Mills seat was left wide open, thanks to the hasty decisions of a stripper.  Ullman was reassigned to fill Mills’ committee and his focus quickly shifted away from keeping the CBO boys-only. Ullman’s reassignment ended debate over whom to appoint CBO Director, and Alice Rivlin was confirmed by the Congress as the Agency’s first administrator, a position she held from 1975-1983.

Of course, it was much more than scandal and happenstance that landed Rivlin in her prestigious position. The seat required someone capable of promoting professional standards in a politically charged decision-making process – a skill not commonly innate to most economists.
 
In order to create an agency capable of producing professionally work quality, Rivlin felt the CBO needed to be isolated from day-to-day congressional demands. Consequently, she organizationally separated budget and program analysis functions by scattering the offices client relationships throughout Congress. In serving all of Congress, the CBO increased its flexibility in selecting its own research agenda and asserting its institutional independence.

Congress was skeptical of her methods, and critics were not shy to voice their concerns.

During the Senate Budget Committee’s first resolution hearing in 1982, Senator Robert Kasten asked Rivlin, “Can you think of anything you have done since February that has been anything but destructive? You are undercutting the administration’s proposal with the economic assumptions you are making.”

Yet, no matter how unnerving the attack, no one could argue that Rivlin gave anything but the straight story. 

“Politicians are always optimistic,” she once said. “They want to think there’s more revenue than there really is, and they need someone to give them the straight story.”

Today, Rivlin holds positions as a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Visiting Professor at the Public Policy Institute of Georgetown University, Director of the Brookings Greater Washington Research Program, and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange. Just a few weeks ago, shortly before her 77th birthday. she testified in front of Congress regarding the highly touted economic stimulus package.  Four months prior, Washingtonian Magazine voted her one of the city’s most influential people.

OhMyGov! has to agree that she is. When we asked for her secret to success in government, she stated, simply and as directly as ever: “do a good job” and improve government by “evaluating agency by agency.” 

For brevity, the incredible list of titles, awards, and jobs held by Alice Rivlin over five decades could not be included in this article.  However, for those interested, that list may be found on the Brookings Institution website.