Former Treasury official Phillip Swagel will serve as the new director of the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan office that provides budgetary and economic expertise to Congress.
Swagel’s appointment was announced by the chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees on Wednesday. On June 3, he will begin a term that runs through Jan. 3, 2023.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Swagel said that he looked to founding CBO Director Alice Rivlin as inspiration. Rivlin, who had a storied career in economics and public policy that included becoming the first woman to serve as Office of Management and Budget director and Federal Reserve Board vice chair, died on Tuesday at 88.
“I want to live up the standard that she set for the office,” said Swagel. “She built a really strong foundation for CBO, and I think that’s the standard that all of us want to live up to.”
Swagel is currently a professor of international economic policy at the University of Maryland and a nonresident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Prior to his professorial career at Maryland and Georgetown University, Swagel was assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department from 2006 until 2009. He also served as chief of staff for the White House Council of Economic Advisers and as an economist for the Federal Reserve and International Monetary Fund.
Swagel replaces Keith Hall, who directed the agency since April 2015. His tenure included providing the CBO’s analyses of the Republican plan to replace Obamacare and the 2017 tax overhaul law.
