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Office of the Director

Telephone: (202) 226-2700
Fax: (202) 225-7509

Director

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Short Bio (pdf)  C.V. (pdf)  Blog

The Director of CBO oversees the agency’s work in providing objective, insightful, timely, and clearly presented information about budget and economic issues. The Director supervises the numerous analytical papers and cost estimates produced by the agency, and he testifies frequently before Congressional committees. In managing the agency, the Director is responsible for a staff of about 250 people and an annual budget of roughly $45 million.

Douglas W. Elmendorf is the eighth Director of CBO. His term began on January 22, 2009.

Before he came to CBO, Doug Elmendorf was a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. As the Edward M. Bernstein Scholar, he served as coeditor of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and the director of the Hamilton Project, an initiative to promote broadly shared economic growth.

Doug Elmendorf was previously an assistant professor at Harvard University, a principal analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, and an assistant director of the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board. In those positions, he worked on budget policy, Social Security, Medicare, national health care reform, financial markets, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, and other topics. He earned his Ph.D. and A.M. in economics from Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow, and his A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University.

Among Doug Elmendorf’s publications are these: "Can Financial Innovation Help to Explain the Reduced Volatility of Economic Activity?" in the Journal of Monetary Economics (January 2006), with Karen Dynan and Daniel Sichel; "Short-Run Effects of Fiscal Policy with Forward-Looking Financial Markets," in the National Tax Journal (September 2002), with David Reifschneider; "Fiscal Policy and Social Security Policy During the 1990s," in American Economic Policy in the 1990s (2002), with Jeffrey Liebman and David Wilcox; "Social Security Reform and National Saving in an Era of Budget Surpluses," in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Fall 2000), with Jeffrey Liebman; "Should America Save for Its Old Age? Fiscal Policy, Population Aging, and National Saving," in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Summer 2000), with Louise Sheiner; "Restraining the Leviathan: Property Tax Limitation in Massachusetts," in the Journal of Public Economics (March 1999), with David Cutler and Richard Zeckhauser; "Government Debt," in the Handbook of Macroeconomics (1999), with Greg Mankiw; and "The Deficit Gamble," in the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking (November 1998), with Laurence Ball and Greg Mankiw.

Deputy Director

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The Deputy Director assists the Director in the overall management of the organization and acts as Director in his or her absence.

Robert A. Sunshine is CBO's Deputy Director, a post he assumed in August 2007. Before then, he was the Assistant Director for Budget Analysis for eight years. In that capacity, he oversaw much of the work of the agency. He supervised the preparation of cost estimates and intergovernmental mandate statements (which identify the costs of federal mandates on state, local, or tribal governments) for legislation being considered by the Congress. He managed the preparation of CBO's multiyear projections of federal spending that constitute the "baseline" for the Congressional budget process; the agency's annual analysis of the President's budget; and its ongoing estimates of spending for Congress's budget scorekeeping system. He also coordinated the preparation of CBO's Monthly Budget Review. In 2003, he received the James L. Blum Award for exceptional and distinguished accomplishment and leadership in public budgeting from the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis.

Robert Sunshine has been with CBO almost from its inception. From 1995 to 1999, he was the Deputy Assistant Director of the Budget Analysis Division. From 1978 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Natural and Physical Resources Cost Estimates Unit in that division. For the two years before that, he was a principal analyst in the Budget Analysis Division, covering transportation issues. Before coming to CBO, he was a senior associate with Simat, Helliesen and Eichner, Inc., a transportation consulting firm.

Associate Director for Communications

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The Associate Director for Communications is responsible for the public affairs activities of CBO, including relations with the media and interaction with public and private interest groups, foreign visitors, and personnel from the legislative and executive branches.

Melissa Merson joined CBO in 2000. In her previous position, she was responsible for public and government relations for myCFO, Inc., a financial professional services firm. Before that, she worked as a Tax Senior Manager for Deloitte & Touche LLP, where she managed the day-to-day operations of the Legislative & Regulatory Services Group. She also served as an appropriations associate and press secretary for a Member of Congress. Earlier, she held a series of positions in news organizations, first as a reporter with BNA, Inc., and then as Congressional Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief with Market News International.

Associate Director for Economic Analysis

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The Associate Director for Economic Analysis contributes to all aspects of the agency's analytic work.

Jeffrey Kling is an economist who joined CBO in July 2009. He has conducted research on public housing, incarceration, retirement security, Medicare's prescription drug program, unemployment insurance, and other aspects of public policy in the United States. His work has been published in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and elsewhere. Previously, he was the Joseph A. Pechman Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. From 1998 to 2005, he was a faculty member at Princeton University. In earlier government service, he was a special assistant to the Secretary of Labor and an assistant to the chief economist at the World Bank. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his A.B. from Harvard University.

Associate Director for Legislative Affairs

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The Associate Director for Legislative Affairs serves as CBO's principal liaison to the Congress, with priority given to the House and Senate Budget Committees.

Edward "Sandy" Davis has been employed with CBO since 1996, and prior to his February 2003 appointment to his current role was a senior analyst specializing in Congressional budget procedures and practices. He joined CBO after serving for many years as an analyst with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.

General Counsel

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The General Counsel performs CBO's legal work: analyzing legislative proposals, interpreting areas of the law addressed in CBO's analytical reports; and providing advice in the general areas of law affecting the agency's operations.

Mark Hadley became CBO's General Counsel in September 2008, advancing from the post of Deputy General Counsel, which he had held since 2006. Before that, he worked for an international law firm, where he represented issuers, commercial banks, and investment banks in the structuring of financial products, management of assets, and negotiation of financial transactions. Prior to his legal career, he was an associate analyst at CBO for five years--during which time his areas of responsibility were air transportation, deposit insurance, and credit reform--and a financial specialist with the Small Business Administration.