Erskine Bowles

A successful businessman who leveraged his experience in the private sector to control spending in the public sector, Erskine Bowles served as the Co-Chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bipartisan group looking to erase the United States’ multitrillion-dollar debt. He is also the co-Founder, with former Senator Alan Simpson, of The Campaign to Fix the Debt, a non-partisan movement to put America on a better fiscal and economic path. Early in his career, Bowles worked for Morgan Stanley and founded his own financial investment company before joining the Clinton Administration to run the Small Business Administration and eventually become President Clinton’s Chief of Staff. As Chief of Staff, he was a pivotal negotiator in getting America’s first balanced budget in decades. A leader who himself had to face down budget woes as the recent President of the University of North Carolina system which depended on a state in a fiscal crisis for much of its funding, Bowles discusses what leaders on both sides of the aisle must do to bring America’s spending and deficit problems under control before the consequences become dire for generations to come. Himself a Democratic operative and candidate for office, Bowles also trains his eye on the American political landscape and provides his candid views on the current issues making their way through Washington.