Background

Meredith Bagby was born in 1974. She is the daughter of Joseph and Martha Bagby.

Education

Meredith received Bachelor of Arts in economics with magna cum Iaude from Harvard University. She then studied law at Columbia University.

Career

Meredith Bagby was a student at Harvard University in 1994 when she wrote and published the Annual Report of the United States of America. Bagby completed the report during her summer vacation after Harvard economics professor Benjamin Friedman cited the ballooning United States debt and Bagby’s mother commented that the American people should receive an annual report in order to track how the government spends tax dollars. Bagby spent $2,500 and printed 250 copies of the finished report. She sent out information and copies to periodicals and publishers, but the Miami Herald was the only publication initially interested in the report.

Later, entrepreneur and former Reform Party presidential candidate Ross Perot requested a copy of the Annual Report of the United States of America. Perot presented the work to the United States Senate Banking Committee and praised its content and style. He later called Bagby and invited her to appear at a convention. The report then began attracting media attention. Bagby was featured in magazines and on television shows, and received a publishing contract. Her book was republished by Harper Business as The First Annual Report of the United States of America: An Account to American Citizens of Where We Stand Economically, Socially and Internationally. After that Bagby has authored a half-dozen books on politics including We've Got Issues and Rational Exuberance.

Bagby has also been a board member of the political think tank, Third Millennium, for over six years and has testified from a youth perspective a half-dozen times before members of the United States Congress including the Senate Finance Committee, the Bipartisan Commission on Medicare, and most recently the President's Committee to Strengthen Social Security. She worked as an on-camera reporter for CNN covering economic and political issues from a youth perspective. She also was a senior development executive at DreamWorks in Los Angeles, where she shephered such projects as Dreamgirls, Terminal, Last Kiss, Ring II, Lemony Snicket, Just Like Heaven, and Dinner for Schmucks.

Today Bagby continues to publish The Annual Report of the United States through the American Education Foundation in conjunction with the Harvard University Institute of Politics.

Achievements

• Meredith Bagby was named one of “the most powerful people in their twenties” by Swing magazine in 1997.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Rational Exuberance: The Influence of Generation X on the New American Economy

    (A young reporter for CNN's Financial News Network analyze...)

    1998
  • Annual Report of the United States of America

    (The 1998 edition of this highly praised resource treats t...)

    1998
  • Annual Report of the United States of America

    (Analyzes the economic, social, and political state of the...)

    1996
  • Annual Report of the United States of America

    (Analyzes the economic, social, and political state of the...)

    1997
  • The First Annual Report of the United States of America

    (Surveys current economic and social conditions.)

    1995

Connections

Father:

Joseph Bagby

Mother:

Martha Bagby

References

• Contemporary Authors A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields
  2008