Fiscal Responsibility

Alison Acosta Fraser - Page 2

The road from California to Washington, DC included a stop in Oklahoma City where Alison worked for Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating. "I worked in budget, tax and fiscal policy for eight years in Oklahoma. Obviously it was a very big change from living at the beach in Southern California but by and large it was a really nice place with very wonderful, gentle, kind people and a great place to raise your kids."

"With Governor Keating being a conservative governor," Alison continues, "we did a lot of conservative public policy work with experts in Washington, DC and formed a pretty close alliance on state-based issues with the Heritage Foundation. When I was looking for other opportunities, they had an opening in an area that fit me. I've been really fortunate to have an opportunity to work here and I absolutely love my job and I learn something new every day." For Alison, as it would be for any American, working in the nation's capital is a dream. "It's a thrilling place to be, in Washington, and I still pinch myself everyday as I drive by the Washington Monument, The White House and The Capitol."

While it is indeed a thrilling place to be, there are very serious issues that Alison wants to help resolve. She has joined the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour as a part-time panelist. She has participated in eight of the tour stops so far. "It's a lot of fun. It's challenging and stimulating," says Alison. "We don't want to make it contentious. It's respectful. We agree on a lot of things but we disagree on some things and in the areas where we do disagree, we're respectful. I respect my counterpart and my colleagues' positions and they respect mine. They don't agree with all of them but we have a lot of common ground."

Finding the common ground has been sorely missed in recent years. "You look at the environment in Washington and it is very partisan and very bitter. I think that all of my colleagues on the Wake-Up Tour would agree with that. I think it is extremely counterproductive to solving the problems that we have today. It's the exception in Congress where a member on one side of the aisle will reach out and have a serious off the record discussion with another member about the challenges that confront us. I think we certainly need to see more of that and I think the American people want to see more of that. On this Fiscal Wake-Up Tour we are trying to lead by example."

So what happened? How did we go from projected budget surpluses to red ink? "It was the Congress and the President together," says Alison. "The Congress passed the bills in the first place. The Congress is the one who has helped earmark spending go from about 1400 earmarks or pork-barrel projects in 1995 to about 14,000 in 2006. It depends on who's figures you're looking at but it's grown to about a problem of $29 billion in the '06 appropriations alone. Totally wasteful spending. The Congress is the one that passed the Medicare Prescription Drug bill that, over the long term, has obligations as large as the entire federal debt at the time it was passed. The Congress passed it, now the President made some proposals along the way but the President also signed every single one of those bills. It takes two parties to make a bill become a law."

"I'm very much in favor of a majority of Bush's tax policies," Alison continues, "especially the ones that came later because those were very growth oriented tax policies. Those especially were responsible for the revenue boom we've seen over the past few years. I've been very concerned about the Bush policies on spending though. They have been very big spenders. More modest in the last couple of years to be sure but still big spenders. We've been quite critical of that as an institution, as have our individual analysts, as well as myself. But the President's recent budget proposes some important changes to Medicare that would begin to rein in these costs, trimming Medicare's long-term costs by one fourth."

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Article:
  Harry Zeeve: Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3
  David Walker: Page 1 - Page 2
  Alison Acosta Fraser: Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3
  Belle Sawhill: Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3
  Chris Swann: Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3
  Carl Tannenbaum: Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3

Recipes:   Lemon Chicken | Rachel's Omelet | Corn Pudding | Marinated Filet Mignon | Asian Pork Tenderloin and Coconut Jasmine Rice | Grilled Chicken Breasts | Steak au Poivre | Pretzel Salad | End of Spring Beef Stew | Chicken Tarragon | Roasted Sweet Potatoes | No Bowl Cake | Chris and Aunt Mary's Stromboli | Aunt Pat's Pizza Meat | Cracchiola Family Sauce | Chris's Baked Ziti | Aunt Eleanor's Spedini | Post-Thanksgiving Gumbo | Singapore Rice Noodles | Red Chili and Orange Barbecue Sauce | Tandoori-style Grilled Chicken