Baker Institute expert available to comment on President Obama’s budget speeches

EXPERT ALERT

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Baker Institute expert available to comment on President Obama’s budget speeches
Diamond: Reducing uncertainty surrounding long-term budget deficits and costly regulations is critical

HOUSTON – (July 24, 2013) – President Barack Obama today began a series of speeches on budget and economic issues facing the nation as it continues to recover from the recession.

John Diamond

John Diamond, an economist and the Edward A. and Hermena Hancock Kelly Fellow in Public Finance at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, is available to comment on the key federal budget and economic variables currently at play.

“U.S. economic growth seems likely to remain fairly modest given the enormous uncertainties facing the economy,” Diamond said. “However, reducing uncertainty surrounding long-term budget deficits and costly regulations, such as the implementation of health care reform, would lay the foundation for more robust and sustainable economic growth. In addition, reforming and simplifying the U.S. individual and corporate income tax systems would help increase the competitiveness of U.S. firms.”

More on Diamond:

Diamond is also an adjunct professor of economics at Rice University and CEO of Tax Policy Advisers LLC. His research interests are federal tax and expenditure policy, state and local public finance, and the construction and simulation of computable general equilibrium models. His current research focuses on the economic effects of corporate tax reform, the economic and distributional effects of fundamental tax reform, individual portfolio allocation in the 2000s and various other tax policy issues. He is co-editor of “Fundamental Tax Reform: Issues, Choices and Implications” (The MIT Press, 2008).

Diamond is the forum editor for the National Tax Journal and has served on the Joint Committee on Taxation, United States Congress (2000-2004). He has also served as a consultant on the efficacy of structural adjustment programs to the World Bank. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Rice University in 2000.

The Baker Institute has a radio and television studio available for media who want to schedule an interview with Diamond. For more information, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

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Related materials:

Diamond biography: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/personnel/fellows-scholars/jdiamond.

Founded in 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston ranks among the top 20 university-affiliated think tanks globally and top 30 think tanks in the United States. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute’s strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows and Rice University scholars. Learn more about the institute at www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute’s blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.