CED Celebrates 70 Years of Excellence in Public Policy

This year marks the 70th anniversary of The Committee for Economic Development. Since its founding by leading companies and CEOs in 1942, CED has created and promoted policies designed to sustain long-term economic growth that benefits all Americans. CED's founders played a central role in creating the Marshall plan in the late 1940s. That leadership continued throughout the 20th century during high-profile efforts to improve education, foster global trade, and reform our system of financing political campaigns.

On Tuesday, January 24th, 2012, CED, in partnership with Rocky Mountain PBS, hosted Postsecondary Education: a Forum for Business Leaders in Denver, Colorado. The luncheon gathered regional business leaders and academics together for a discussion on the state of postsecondary education in Colorado, and the role that the sector plays in maintaining an innovative workforce in the Untied States.

On January 20, 2012, CED hosted a policy discussion with Kaplan CEO Andrew Rosen. Mr. Rosen is the author of Change.edu, a book that takes a hard look at the current state of American postsecondary education and how we can improve higher education and better prepare students for the workplace. At CED, Mr. Rosen outlined the problems faced by non-traditional postsecondary education students. In addition to the costs of continuing their education, older postsecondary students are often pulled away from their studies by jobs and family.

by Joe Minarik, CED Senior Vice President and Director of Research

Sadly, we have seen the end of the Supercommittee. It failed to meet its deadline to report a deficit-reduction bill to the Congress.

But equally sadly, we have not seen the end of the issue. The exploding cigar of debt is still lit and burning. And we do not know precisely where in the cigar the charge is located. We are living on borrowed time – as well as borrowed money.

In the near term, the national sport – at least in Washington – will be the blame game. (In St. Louis, it's still baseball.) It will be an exciting game, because there is so much blame to go around.

Alain C. Enthoven’s paper, To Reform Medicare, Reform Incentives And Organization, explains how the principles of cost-responsible consumer choice among competing health-insurance plans, sometimes called “managed competition,” can both improve quality and reduce cost in the federal government’s Medicare program.
 

On October 25, 2011, the Committee for Economic Development hosted its Annual Distinguished Performance Awards Dinner at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in New York City. This year, CED honored five leading individuals and companies for their outstanding work on major policy issues facing corporations and society.

CED Announces Broad Support for Its Deficit Reduction Efforts and the Need for a Simpler Tax Code to Make the U.S. More Globally Competitive While Also Raising Revenue.

The Committee for Economic Development (CED), the business-led public policy group that has been heavily involved in many of the most critical economic battles of the past seven decades, today called on Federal leaders to adopt a new comprehensive "competitiveness agenda" to deal in a systematic and constructive way with reviving the U.S. economy.

 

Read the full release »

On Thursday October 13, 2011, CED co-hosted a NH Republican Primary forum with Americans for Campaign Reform, No Labels, and Americans for Prosperity-NH entitled, "Solving Our Fiscal Crisis: What's Wrong with Washington?" at Saint Anselm's Institute of Politics. During the event, CED and ACR released a new poll of likely NH Republican Primary voters on attitudes toward the role of money in politics.

• View the poll and read the full report

On Tuesday, October 4, 2011, CED released a set of six standards it will apply to all proposals considered and approved by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. CED is making it clear that the American business community will hold the Joint Select Committee responsible for doing more than the minimum required of it by the Budget Control Act. CED is also making it clear that the business community wants real deficit reductions rather than budget gimmicks; that all parts of the budget, including spending and tax provisions that benefit business, must be on the table; and that the business community will actively support those members of Congress who help make these things happen.

 

• Click here for the Six Standards for the Joint Select Committee and the list of the endorsers   
• CED's Recommendations for Deficit Reduction
• CED President Kolb Says Super Committee's Reported Lack of Progress "Completely Unacceptable"

New paper calls for national database on governance and practices of institutional investors

Washington, D.C. October 3, 2011. The Committee for Economic Development (CED) and the Millstein Center at the Yale School of Management have today published a new working paper, Are Institutional Investors Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? authored by Ben W. Heineman, Jr., Chair of CED's Corporate Governance Subcommittee and senior fellow at Harvard's schools of law and government and Stephen Davis, Executive Director of the Millstein Center. The report argues that institutional investors---pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and endowments of non-profits now have a significant impact on individuals, investee companies, the market and the economy but far too little is known about how they are governed.