Robert A. Sunshine is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

government official. He is Senior Adviser to the Director of the

Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a federal agency within the legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. Inspired by California's Legislative Analyst's Office that manages ...

, having served as the Deputy Director of the CBO from 2007 to 2016 and Acting Director from November 2008 to January 2009.

Career

Before coming to CBO, Sunshine was a senior associate with Simat, Helliesen and Eichner, a transportation consulting firm. He has been with the CBO almost from its inception. From 1976 to 1978, he was a principal analyst in CBO's Budget Analysis Division, covering transportation issues. From 1978 to 1994, he served as Chief of the Natural and Physical Resources Cost Estimates Unit in that division. From 1995 to 1999, he was the Deputy Assistant Director of the Budget Analysis Division. From 1999 to 2007, he was the Assistant Director for Budget Analysis. In that capacity, he oversaw much of the work of the agency. He supervised the preparation of cost estimates and intergovernmental mandate statements (which identify the costs of federal mandates on state, local, or tribal governments) for legislation being considered by the Congress. He managed the preparation of CBO's multi-year projections of federal spending that constitute the baseline for the Congressional budget process, the agency's annual analysis of the Presidential budget, and its ongoing estimates of spending for the Congressional budget score keeping system. He also coordinated the preparation of CBO's Monthly Budget Review. In 2003, Sunshine received the James L. Blum Award for exceptional and distinguished accomplishment and leadership in public budgeting from the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis. Sunshine served as Acting Director of the CBO from November 25, 2008, to January 22, 2009. In January 2009 testimony before the

Senate Budget Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Budget was established by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. It is responsible for drafting Congress's annual budget plan and monitoring action on the budget for the Federal G ...

, Sunshine warned of the significance of the

2008–2012 global recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...

. "This isn't your run-of-the-mill recession." On January 15, 2009, CBO issued its preliminary score of Congressional Democratic Leaders' economic stimulus package designed to counter the 2008–2012 recession. CBO's analysis found that the stimulus bill would not be as stimulative as Democrats had hoped. Then

House Appropriations Committee The United States House Committee on Appropriations is a committee of the United States House of Representatives that is responsible for passing appropriation bills along with its Senate counterpart. The bills passed by the Appropriations Commi ...

Chairman

David Obey David Ross Obey ( ; born October 3, 1938) is an American lobbyist and former politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for from 1969 to 2011. The district includes much of the northwestern portion of the st ...

(D-Wisconsin) called them "off the wall", while

Senate Majority Leader The positions of majority leader and minority leader are held by two United States senators and members of the party leadership of the United States Senate. They serve as the chief spokespersons for their respective political parties holding t ...

Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...

(D-Nevada) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman

Daniel Inouye Daniel Ken Inouye ( ; September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012. Beginning in 1959, he was the first U.S. representative f ...

(D-Hawaii) also blasted the agency's report. Former CBO Director

Peter R. Orszag Peter Richard Orszag (born December 16, 1968) is the CEO of Financial Advisory at Lazard. Before June 2019, he was the firm's Head of North American M&A and Global Co-Head of Healthcare. Orszag previously served as a Vice Chairman of Corporate ...

, who a few weeks earlier worked with Sunshine, sent a letter to Congress stating that the CBO analysis "did not assess the overall package". The Washington newspaper '' The Hill'' editorialized that "what Sunshine did took courage". In May 2010, Sunshine briefed members of the

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (often called Simpson–Bowles or Bowles–Simpson from the names of co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles; or NCFRR) was a bipartisan Presidential Commission on deficit reduction, ...

on historical trends and CBO's projections related to mandatory spending.States News Service, "Presentations to National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility". May 18, 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunshine, Robert A. 21st-century American economists Directors of the Congressional Budget Office Living people People from Washington, D.C. Year of birth missing (living people)