Background
Aaron, Henry Jacob J. was born on June 16, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David and Betty (Cooper) Aaron.
(In the early 1960s America was in a confident mood and em...)
In the early 1960s America was in a confident mood and embarked on a series of efforts to solve the problems of poverty, racial discrimination, unemployment, and inequality of educational opportunity. The programs of the Great Society and the War on Poverty were undergirded by a broad consensus about what our problems as a nation were and how we should solve them. But by the early seventies both political and scholarly tides had shifted. Americans were divided and uncertain about what to do abroad, fearful of military inferiority, and pessimistic about the capacity of government to deal affirmatively with domestic problems. A new administration renounced the rhetoric of the Great Society and changed the emphasis of many programs. On the scholarly front, new research called into question the old faiths on which liberal legislation had been based. In this book, the sixteenth volume in the Brookings series in Social Economics, Henry Aaron describes both the initial consensus and its subsequent decline. He examines the evolution of attitude and pronouncements by scholars and popular writers on the role of the federal government and its capacity to bring about beneficial change in three broad areas: poverty and discrimination, education and training, and unemployment and inflation. He argues that the political eclipse of the Great Society depended more on events external to it--war in Vietnam, dissolution of the civil rights coalition, and, finally, the Watergate scandal and all its repercussions--than on its intrinsic failings. Aaron concludes that both the initial commitment to use national polices to solve social and economic problems and the subsequent disillusionment of scholars andlaymen alike rest largely on preconceptions and faiths that have little to do with research themselves.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815700261/?tag=2022091-20
( With baby-boomer retirement drawing nearer, Social Secu...)
With baby-boomer retirement drawing nearer, Social Security, long a "third rail" in American politics, has become fair game. When President Clinton launched national discussion in April on the future of the program, the loudest voices seemed to belong to those who claimed the system would go "bankrupt" and argued for scrapping it in favor of a privatized plan. Is the nation's premier social insurance program on the brink of collapse? In this book, two of the nation's most widely respected economists argue that the "Chicken Little" view of Social Security--that future costs doom the current system--is so exaggerated that it is just plain wrong. Certainly, the retirement of the baby boom generation will require some adjustments, but they need be no greater in type or size than adjustments the government has adopted to deal with the overall budget deficit. The book provides the historical background of the economic circumstances that different generations have faced in this century and shows how changes in Social Security has affected life in America. The authors also analyze the economic assumptions underlying current reform efforts, closely scrutinizing the increasingly popular proposals to privatize Social Security by transforming it from an insurance program to a system of individual retirement accounts.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870784307/?tag=2022091-20
Aaron, Henry Jacob J. was born on June 16, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David and Betty (Cooper) Aaron.
AB, University of California at Los Angeles, 1958. Master of Arts, Harvard University, 1960. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1963.
Associate professor economics University Maryland, 1967-1975, professor, 1975-1977, 79-89. Senior fellow Brookings Institution, 1968-1978, 96—, since 1996, director economic studies, 1990-1996. Assistant secretary planning and evaluation Department of Health, Washington, 1977-1978.
Senior staff economist President's Council Economic Advisers, 1966-1967. Member Governor Maryland Council Economic Advisers, 1968-1975. Visiting professor economics Harvard University, 1974.
Member board directors Abt Associates, since 1979, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since 1994. Chairman Advisory Council on Social Security, 1978-1979. Trustee Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, 1984-1987.
Trustee Georgetown University, 1995-1997, board directors. Member visiting committee department economics Harvard University, 1985-1989. Member Institute Medicine, since 1986, member committee on economic future of baseball, 1990-1992.
Research advisory council Joint Center Political Studies, 1984-1989. Vice president National Academy Social Insurance, 1986-1996, chairman board directors, since 1998. Research advisory board Committee Economic Development, 1988-1992.
Member advisory committee Stanford Institute Economic Policy Research Stanford University, since 1991. Member visiting committee Harvard Medical and Dental Schools, since 2006.
(In the early 1960s America was in a confident mood and em...)
( With baby-boomer retirement drawing nearer, Social Secu...)
(Book by Aaron, Henry J.)
(Book by Aaron, Henry J., Schwartz, William B.)
(Book by Aaron, Henry J., Galper, Harvey)
(A classic.)
Author: Who Pays the Property Tax?, 1974, Politics and the Professors, 1978, Serious and Unstable Condition: Financing America's Health Care. Co-author: The Peculiar Problem of Taxing Life Insurance Companies, 1983, The Economic Effects of Social Security, 1984, The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care, 1984, Assessing Tax Reform, 1985, Can America Afford To Grow Old?, 1988, (with Robert Reischauer) Countdown to Reform: The Great Social Security Debate. Editor: Setting National Priorities: Policies for the Nineties, 1990, Serious and Unstable Condition: Financing America's Health Care, 1991.
Co-editor: Setting Domestic Priorities: What Can Government Do?, 1992, Values and Public Policy, 1994. Economic Effects of Fundamental Tax Reform (edited with William Gale), 1996, (with Robert D. Reischaver) Countdown to Reform: The Great Social Security Debate, 1998, Journal Economic Perspectives, Journal Public Economics, Journal Health Economics. Contributor articles to professional journals.
Member advisory committee Center Economic Policy Research, Stanford University. Member American Economic Association (executive committee 1978-1981, vice president 1991), American Academy Arts and Sciences, Association Public Policy and Management (president 1998-1999).
Married Ruth Kotell, May 5, 1963. Children: Jeffrey, Melissa.