Leonard Emanuel Burman

Background

Burman, Leonard Emanuel was born on September 13, 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Maxwell David and Kathleen Burman.

Education

Prior to graduate school, Burman was an economist with Data Resources, Inc. from 1975 to 1978. He served as an economics instructor at Bates College from 1983 to 1985 before beginning his career in Washington.

Career

Burman began his career in Washington by taking a two-year leave from teaching at Bates College to work as a financial economist with the Department of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of Treasury. During his time at Treasury, Burman worked on the design and implementation of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.[2] After leaving Treasury in 1988, Burman served for over a decade as a senior economic analyst at the Congressional Budget Office writing reports on tax policy issues including the low-income housing credit, health reform, tax incentives for health and retirement, and the capital gains tax.

The Clinton administration brought Burman back to Treasury in 1998 to become the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Analysis, serving as the administration’s top tax economist. Burman served in this post for two years.

In 2000, Burman left the Clinton administration to become a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

In 2002, Burman, along with other tax experts from the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations, founded the Tax Policy Center as a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. Burman served as the inaugural director of the Tax Policy Center until 2009 and provided guidance on tax policy issues and proposals as a resident expert. The current director of the Tax Policy Center is Donald Marron.

Since leaving the Clinton administration in 2000, Burman has served several posts in academia. From 2000 to 2008, Burman served as a visiting professor and lecturer at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and has served as a visiting professor at the UCLA School of Law.

Burman currently serves as the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Professor of Public Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University teaching classes on tax and social policy. In addition, Burman is a senior research associate at Syracuse University’s Center for Policy Research, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an affiliated scholar at the Urban Institute.

Burman blogs as The Impertinent Economist on Forbes.com and on the Tax Policy Center’s blog, TaxVox and has written over 120 articles on a wide range of tax and fiscal policy issues over a thirty year span. His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, and many other publications. In addition, Burman has written or coedited three books including The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide for the Perplexed and is currently coauthoring a book on U.S. tax policy with Joel Slemrod.

Achievements

• He is the immediate past-president of the National Tax Association, has served on the on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, and currently serves on the board of the Pew SubsidyScope Project.
  
  His commentaries have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Newsday, Christian Science Monitor, Syracuse Post-Standard, CNNMoney, and the public radio programs Marketplace and Morning Edition. He has been interviewed on various national and regional news programs, including Columbia Broadcasting System Sunday Morning (cover story), The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (Public Broadcasting Service), Washington Journal (C-Span), Lou Dobbs Moneyline (Cable News Network), Nightly Business Report (Public Broadcasting Service), Capital Report (Consumer News and Business Channel), Your World with Neil Cavuto (Fox), British Broadcasting Corporation World, all the network news programs as well as Bloomberg television, CNNfn,Cable News Network, Consumer News and Business Channel, and Fox cable news programs. He has appeared as a radio guest on Fresh Air (Public Broadcasting Service), Kojo Nnamdi Show (WAMU), Diane Rehm Show (WAMU), Iowa Talks (WSUI), Midmorning (MPR), On Point (Public Broadcasting Service), Conversations with Joy Cardin (Wisconsin public radio), and he has been interviewed on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace, Capitol Press Room, and numerous regional stations.

Works

• book

  • The labyrinth of capital gains tax policy : a guide for the perplexed

  • Using taxes to reform health insurance : pitfalls and promises

  • The tax treatment of employment-based health insurance

  • Capital gains taxes in the short run

  • Taxing capital income

  • Six tax laws later how individuals' marginal federal income tax rates changed between 1980 and 1995

  • Tax expenditures, the size and efficiency of government, and implications for budget reform

  • The cost-effectiveness of the low-income housing tax credit compared with housing vouchers

Membership

Trustee American Tax Policy Institute, Washington, 2004—2007.

Interests

• Sings baritone in the Syracuse Oratorio Society and loves to cook.

• Sport & Clubs

  Bicycling. Biked across the United States in 2005 with his son, Paul, to raise money for Partners In Health, an incredible NGO that provides first-world health care to some of the poorest people in the world. ( Raised $108,000.)

Connections

Married Melissa Jane Herrick. Children: Robert, Paul, Kent, Elizabeth.

Father:

Maxwell David

Mother:

Kathleen Burman

child:

Robert Burman

child:

Kent Burman

child:

Paul Burman

child:

Elizabeth Burman

Wife:

Melissa Burman