Peter Orszag was born in Boston in 1968 and grew up in nearby Lexington. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy, a private secondary school, and graduated with high honors. He went on to Princeton University where he graduated summa cum laude in economics in 1991. Orszag continued his education in economics and received a master’s degree and Ph.D. from London School of Economics.

Peter Orszag began his career as an economist as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. As the Deputy Director of Economic Studies, Orszag oversaw the Hamilton Project and the Pew Charitable Trust’s Retirement Security Project. Through the Brookings Institution, Orszag worked on economic budget issues, including social security and health care reform.

Orszag served under President Clinton as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Years later, he served the Obama administration as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, which is responsible for creating the federal budget and overseeing the effectiveness of federal programs.

Prior to his work with President Obama, Orszag served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2007 to November 2008. From this position, Orszag continually stressed the importance of health care reform in creating a stable economy.

Since January 2011, Orszag has worked as a Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup and holds this position currently. At Citigroup, Orszag continues to promote free markets, balanced budgets, and limited regulation.

Outside of his work at Citigroup, Peter Orszag serves as an adjunct senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations. The Council on Foreign Relations is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that specializes in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.

Orszag also currently writes a bimonthly column for the Bloomberg View. His column covers a variety of topics, including consumer-directed health care, political polarization, and the growing gaps in life expectancy.

Orszag has also written an Op-Ed column in The New York Times. He enjoys running and participates in marathons. Orszag is married to Bianna Golodryga of ABC News.

As the director of the OMB from November 2008 through July of 2010, Orszag played a key role in catalyzing health care reform. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s health care reform bill of 2010 would cost about 940 billion dollars over a decade. While the opposition finds this figure too high, proponents such as Orszag insist that a total re-haul of the health care system is necessary to save money in the long run, provide stability to the nation, and worthwhile health care to the American people.

The Bill

Figures presented by the CBO show that the bill would reduce the deficit by $143 billion in the first decade and $1.4 trillion in the next decade. The Medicare deficit would be reduced by 75 percent, and 32 million Americans without insurance would be covered.

It’s important to consider that health care reform aims not only to save the nation’s money, but also to improve the health care system as a whole, to provide quality care to all Americans, and to create a healthier nation in general. For example, in the quantity/quality dichotomy, focus would turn to quality of care. All processes and testing would be more efficient. There would be consequences for hospitals with high rates of readmission or infections/illnesses acquired at the establishment. With a more streamlined system, health care would be efficient, and more cost-effective.

With health care come government entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Health care reform would focus on improving the effectiveness of these programs as well. An Independent Payment Advisory Board, made up of medical personnel, would have the responsibility of addressing this.

As part of the nonpartisan influence on the decisions made regarding America’s economy, Orszag clearly emphasizes the importance of health care reform to stabilize the economy and optimize health care experiences of all Americans.

Eliminating the Social Security deficit can only be done through tax increases or benefit reductions, neither of which is an easy decision. Some assume that money can be transferred from the federal budget to Social Security, but this ignores the deficits projected in the budget. Others assume Social Security can borrow trillions of dollars to finance stock investments, but this does not take risk into account.

Orszag’s proposed plan focuses on three areas that contribute to actuarial imbalance:

• Improvements in life expectancy
• Increases in earnings inequality
• The burden of the legacy debt

Life expectancy is on an upward trend and is expected to continue rising. Since 1940, life expectancy at age 65 has increased five years for women and four years for men. More years of life means more years of Social Security payments. In order to offset the costs, Orszag proposes tax increases in conjunction with benefit reductions. Orszag’s plan would reduce the actuarial deficit by 0.55% of taxable payroll. This is a little less than a third of the current deficit.

Social Security financing is affected by an increase in untaxable earnings and the widening difference in life expectancy between low earners and high earners. Orszag’s proposal raises the taxable maximum and reduces the highest tier of benefit earners. These changes would reduce the actuarial deficit by 0.43% of taxable payroll.

The legacy debt is the difference between what the first generation of Social Security beneficiaries paid into the system and the benefits they received. Paying off the debt remains a burden for current and future generations. The main issue is financing the legacy debt across several generations. Orszag proposes three changes:

• Mandating Social Security coverage for state and local government workers
• Creating a tax on all earnings above the maximum taxable earnings base
• Creating a universal charge, which will appear as benefit reduction and an increased payroll tax

Through this plan, Orszag hopes to prevent an even larger Social Security deficit.

The projected deficit for the year 2015 is 4-5% of GDP. A sustainable level is about 3% or lower. Thus, the nation needs to reduce the deficit by 1-2% of GDP, about $200-400 billion a year, by 2015.

Half of the budget by 2015 will go towards health care (Medicare and Medicaid) and Social Security, both of which could use reform according to Orszag. The recent health care reform bill included substantial savings. Reforming Social Security would generate little savings as any plan would include benefit changes to avoid harming beneficiaries. The other half of spending consists of net interest and discretionary spending. The latter is split between defense and non-defense spending.

With all this spending, it might be tough to save more than half a percent of GDP by 2015. Orszag states that additional revenue, about 0.5 to 1.5 percent of GDP, is necessary to reduce the deficit. This can be achieved through revenue-increasing tax reform. Tripling the current 2% payroll tax holiday to 6% would amount to about 2% of the GDP—about $3,000 for each family earning $50,000 a year. Allowing the tax cuts to expire by the end of 2012 would lower the deficit by more than $3 trillion.

Orszag asserts that one of the most important contributors to the nation’s long term deficit is the cost of health care. The Affordable Care Act contains numerous tools to contain cost growth. Making use of these tools will help stifle health care costs. Conjointly, reforming Social Security would help stabilize the economy.

Citigroup is an American multinational group that provides financial services across 140 countries. The company is based in New York City and formed as a merger between Travelers Group and Citicorp in 1998. Citigroup is currently America’s third largest bank and has over 16,000 offices all over the world. From his vice chairman position, Orszag oversees around 250,000 staff members with over 200 million customer accounts.

In transitioning from serving under a presidential administration to working for Citigroup, Orszag follows in the footsteps of one of his mentors, Robert Rubin. Rubin worked as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under both Clinton administrations and found a post-government role as Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup. He would later serve temporarily as Chairman of Citigroup. Orszag’s economic philosophies are in keeping with Rubin’s, stressing free markets, balanced budgets, and limited regulation to solve the economy’s overall climate.

Peter Orszag is also a member of Citigroup’s Senior Strategic Advisory Group. Here he joins other senior banking members to shape the banking group’s financial policies. The group also focuses on managing client relationships.

Even with his full schedule with this massive banking group, Orszag remains a working economist, spending a third of his time conducting macroeconomic research.

Before he took his position with Citigroup, Orszag was the 37th Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He was nominated to the position by President Barack Obama in November of 2008, and stayed until August of 2010.

Prior to this, Orszag was the Director of the Congressional Budget Office from early 2007 through November of 2008.

Orszag was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2001-2007, before taking his subsequent White House positions. Brookings is a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington D.C.-based think tank, conducting research in the areas of social science, including economics.

While at Brookings, Orszag directed and cofounded the Hamilton Project and the Retirement Security Project, and also coauthored several books.

Prior to Orszag’s experience at Brookings, he was on the West Coast lecturing in macroeconomics at UC Berkley.

Peter Orszag first worked in the White House during the Clinton Administration before he turned 30. In 1995 and 1996, he was Senior Economist on the Council of Economic Advisers. In 1997 and 1998, he was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.

As a writer, Orszag has also contributed to the Op-Ed column of The New York Times.

Education

In 1987, Peter Orszag graduated with high honors from Philips Exeter Academy. After this, he received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton, where he graduated summa cum laude.

For graduate school, Orszag traveled to the London School of Economics. He earned a master’s degree in 1992 and a doctorate in 1997.

Other accomplishments include being a Marshall Scholar in 1991 and 1992, and a member of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa.

Personal Life

Orszag still spends a large part of his time conducting research in economics.

He enjoys a healthy lifestyle and is a runner, participating in marathons. He has three young children, and married Bianna Golodryga of ABC News in 2010.