Contributor

Brian Riedl, Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation

Biography provided by participant

Brian Riedl is the Grover M. Hermann Fellow for Federal Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Riedl mainly focuses on federal spending trends, appropriations, budget process reform, and budget deficits. He also studies economic growth, tax policy, agriculture spending, antipoverty programs, and long-term entitlement spending trends.

As early and 2002 and 2003, Riedl became one of the first writers to note the beginning of a massive federal spending spree under President Bush, which has since pushed federal spending above $25,000 per household. In 2006, Riedl�s writings helped expose $14 billion in additional domestic spending added to an Iraq bill (including Mississippi's "railroad to nowhere") and the ensuing public backlash forced Congress to strip these funds from the bill. In 2008, Riedl was a leading critic of the farm bill, which was ultimately vetoed by President Bush (although overridden by Congress).

Riedl's budget research has been featured in front-page stories and editorials in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. He has discussed budget policy on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. He also participates in the bipartisan "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," which holds town hall meetings across America focusing on the looming crisis in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Before coming to Heritage in 2001, Riedl worked for then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, former Rep. Mark Green (R-WI), and the Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly. Riedl holds a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin, and a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

Recent Responses

August 24, 2010 12:50 PM

RE: Do Tax Rebates Work?

Rebates Merely Redistribute the Pie We've seen in 2001 and 2008 that tax rebates fail to bring economic growth. And it's not even a matter of whether they are saved or spent. Its about productivity and labor supply. Reducing marginal tax rates increases incentives to work, save, and invest -- which results in greater labor supply, more productivity, and as a result, more growth. But tax rebates do none of that -- no one has to work, save, or invest more to get a rebate. In that sense, rebates just redistribute the pie rather than expand it. Washington borrows $100 billion from… Read more

November 9, 2009 07:28 AM

RE: Creating Or 'Saving' More Jobs

Those dissecting the White House claim that the $200 billion spent on the stimulus has created or saved 650,000 jobs have focused on the arithmetical errors in counting the hirings. They are ignoring a much more fundamental issue. Before Congress could inject $200 billion into the economy, they had to borrow $200 billion out of the economy. So the more central question is thus: ***If injecting $200 billion into the economy supported 650,000 jobs, then how many jobs were lost by first borrowing that $200 billion out of the economy?*** The White House says zero. Their job numbers assume all… Read more