Deficit hawks Simpson and Bowles speak Oct. 9

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, former co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, in Millett Hall. The presentation is part of the Farmer School of Business Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Lecture Series. It is free and open to all.

Known as "the deficit-reduction duo," "wise men of Washington" and "deficit hawks," Simpson and Bowles are also the co-founders of The Campaign to Fix the Debt, a nonpartisan movement to put America on a better fiscal and economic path.

President Barack Obama created the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in 2010 to address our nation's fiscal challenges. The Commission was charged with identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.

Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming (1979-1997), is best known for "being a forceful voice for common-sense policy" throughout his nearly two decades in the Senate.

He is also a former visiting lecturer in political science at the University of Wyoming – his alma mater – and formerly the director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Bowles is president emeritus of University of North Carolina, where he served from 2005 to 2010, former White House chief of staff and former administrator of the Small Business Administration.

Early in his career, Bowles worked for Morgan Stanley and founded his own financial investment company before joining the Clinton administration in 1993 to run the Small Business Administration. He eventually became President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.

As chief of staff, he was a pivotal negotiator in getting America’s first balanced budget in decades. As president of the University of North Carolina system, he had to face down budget woes in the system which depended on a state in a fiscal crisis for much of its funding.

The lecture is sponsored by the Farmer School of Business Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Lecture Series.