TAX PANEL ANNOUNCES WITNESS LIST FOR FIFTH MEETING IN NEW ORLEANS ON MARCH 23RD

WASHINGTON, DC - Senators Connie Mack and John Breaux, Chairman and Vice -Chairman of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, today announced the witness list for the Panel's sixth meeting to be held on Wednesday, March 23, 2005. The meeting will be held at the Louisiana Children's Museum, 420 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 at 9:30 am. The witnesses will provide the panel additional perspectives about fairness of the tax code and how the tax system affects families. Biographical information for each witness is attached.

The Honorable John Kennedy
Treasurer of Louisiana

Panel I: What is Fairness and How Can it Be Measured?
Bob Greenstein
Founder and Executive Director, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

William W. Beach
Director, Center for Data Analysis, The Heritage Foundation

Panel II: Low-Income Taxpayers
Hilary Hoynes
Professor of Economics, University of California at Davis

Mark Moreau
Co-Director, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services

David Marzahl
Executive Director, Center for Economic Progress

Panel III: Tax Treatment of Families

Eugene Steuerle
Senior Fellow, Urban Institute

Mark Pauly
Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

James Alm
Professor, Andrew Young School of Public Policy, Georgia State University

About the Tax Reform Panel:
The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform was established by President Bush on January 7, 2005. President Bush has charged the bipartisan panel with recommending reforms to the tax code that will make the U.S. tax system simpler, fairer and more growth oriented.

Panel Members

Connie Mack III (Chairman), Senior Advisor, King & Spalding LLP and former U.S. Senator. Senator Mack served as Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and was a member of the Finance and Banking committees.

John Breaux (Vice-Chairman), former U.S. Senator. Senator Breaux served on the Finance Committee and the sub-committee on Taxation and IRS Oversight.

William Eldridge Frenzel, former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Frenzel served on the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Frenzel is a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Elizabeth Garrett, Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science, University of Southern California. Ms. Garrett served as Legislative Director and Tax and Budget Counsel to former U.S. Senator David L. Boren.

Edward P. Lazear, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Professor of Human Resources, Management and Economics, Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Mr. Lazear is the founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics.

Timothy J. Muris, Foundation Professor, George Mason School of Law and Of Counsel, O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Mr. Muris served as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2001 to 2004.

James Michael Poterba, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Poterba serves as Associate Department Head. He has taught at MIT since 1982.

Charles O. Rossotti, Senior Advisor, The Carlyle Group. Mr. Rossotti served from 1997 to 2002 as Commissioner of Internal Revenue. He formerly served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of American Management Systems.

Liz Ann Sonders, Chief Investment Strategist, Charles Schwab. Ms. Sonders joined U.S. Trust, a division of Charles Schwab, in 1999 as a Managing Director and member of its Investment Policy Committees.

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Biographical Information for Witnesses Scheduled to Participate in the Fifth Meeting of The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform March 23, 2005

John Neely Kennedy has been the Treasurer of Louisiana since 1999. In this position, he oversees all local and state bond issues, returns millions of dollars in unclaimed property each year, and manages state fiscal matters. Previously, Kennedy served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue, Special Counsel to Governor Buddy Roemer, and Secretary to the Governor's Cabinet. He was a member of Governor Roemer's Commission on Medical Malpractice and the Secretary of State's Commission on Corporations. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he holds a B.C.L. from Oxford University and a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Robert Greenstein is the founder and Executive Director of The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Greenstein has written numerous reports, analyses, op-ed pieces, and magazine articles on poverty-related issues. In 1996, Greenstein was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. In 1994, he was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. Prior to founding the Center, Greenstein was Administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

William W. Beach is the John M. Olin Senior Fellow in Economics and director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation. Previously, Beach served as an economist for Missouri's Office of Budget and Planning and as President of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. A graduate of Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, Beach also holds a master's degree in history and economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Hilary W. Hoynes is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis, where she focuses on welfare and low-income tax policy, low-skill labor markets, and government transfer programs. She has research affiliations at the National Bureau of Economic, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the National Poverty Center and the Institute for Research on Poverty. Professor Hoynes received her Ph.D from Stanford University.

Mark Moreau is the Co-Director of Southeast Louisiana Legal Services and the Director of its Low Income Taxpayer Clinic. Mr. Moreau has a LL.M in Taxation from New York University Law School. He has also worked as a tax specialist for the international accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand. Mr. Moreau is the author of Tax Practice for Legal Services and Pro Bono Attorneys. He is a recipient of the Louisiana State Bar Association's Career Public Interest Award.

David Marzahl is the Executive Director of the Center for Economic Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The Center operates the Tax Counseling Project, which is the nation's largest free, community-based tax preparation program, and hosts the National Community Tax. Prior to joining the Center, David was the founding director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights. He has a Master's Degree in Political Economy from Northwestern University.

Eugene Steuerle is a Senior Fellow at The Urban Institute, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and a columnist for Tax Notes Magazine. Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis at the Treasury Department and as President of the National Tax Association He is the author, co-author or co-editor of over 150 articles, reports, and testimonies, 650 briefs, and 11 books. His latest book is Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy.

Mark Pauly is a professor, vice dean, and chair of the Health Care Systems Department in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of: Health Benefits at Work: An Economic and Political Analysis of Employment-Related Health Insurance, Supplying Vaccine: An Economic Analysis of Critical Issues, and Financing Long Term Care: What Should Be the Government's Role? He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia, his M.A. in economics from the University of Delaware, and his A.B. from Xavier University.

James Alm is Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently Editor of Public Finance Review and an Associate Editor of Economic Inquiry and Review of Economics of the Household. He earned his master's degree in economics at the University of Chicago and his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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