Jeffrey Brown
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – University of Illinois finance professor Jeffrey R. Brown will be nominated by President Bush to serve on the board of trustees for the nation’s Social Security and Medicare programs, the White House announced Tuesday.
If approved by the Senate, Brown will serve a four-year term as one of two public trustees, first added in 1984 to increase public confidence in the programs. The six-member oversight board also includes the secretaries of treasury, labor, and health and human services and the commissioner of Social Security.
The board monitors the financial status of the two major entitlement programs to ensure their trust funds are properly managed, presenting annual reports to Congress that forecast spending and revenue for more than 75 years.
Brown, director of the Center on Business and Public Policy in the U. of I. College of Business, is a member of the bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board, a separate body that advises the president, Congress and Social Security Administration on a wide range of policy and administrative issues facing the Social Security program. His term is set to expire in September.
In 2001, Brown served as an economist on the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security. He also was a senior economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in 2001-02, and periodically traveled with Bush in 2005 in the White House’s campaign to promote the need for Social Security reform.
Brown is the William G. Karnes Professor of Finance at the U. of I., where he has served on the faculty since 2002. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Miami University, a master’s in public policy from Harvard University and a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Editor’s note: To contact Brown, call 217-333-3322; e-mail brownjr@illinois.edu
