Former Federal Reserve vice chair to discuss polarization of American public at SPEA

Bloomington native Alice Rivlin, former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and Brookings Institution Scholar, will speak Thursday at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.\nRivlin will discuss the question "Are we too polarized to make public decisions?" at 5:30 p.m. in the SPEA atrium.\n"I'm very worried that public debate has become polarized and extremely partisan," Rivlin told the Indiana Daily Student Wednesday. She said her speech will address why political rhetoric has become so polarized and her ideas for fixing the problem. She believes politicians need to avoid partisanship and make compromises.\n"I'm rather mystified by why we perceive we are so polarized," she said, noting though rhetoric has become very polarized, American politics are not as split as politicians and the media make them out to be.\nRivlin, whose father was an IU physics professor, was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office in 1975 and director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under former President Clinton.\nRivlin, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, took a summer economics class at IU.\nAn expert in economic and public policy, Rivlin is currently working on projects aimed at balancing the federal budget and improving public policy in the Washington, D.C., metro area.\nAs vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Rivlin worked closely with Alan Greenspan, who is preparing to step down as Fed chairman after more than 18 years.\n"He's sort of become a mythic figure," Rivlin said. \nRivlin said she is happy with President Bush's nomination of senior White House adviser Ben Bernanke to replace Greenspan.\nLong an opponent of the Bush administration's monetary and economic policy, Rivlin's 2004 book "Restoring Fiscal Sanity" criticizes Bush for overspending and undertaxing.\n"We will either have to raise taxes, cut federal spending drastically or break the promises we made to the older segment of the population," she said.