With the United States facing its largest deficit since the second World War, President Barack Obama has called on Erskine Bowles to head a national commission to tackle the country’s greatest economic burden.
Obama announced Feb. 18 that Bowles, the current president of the University of North Carolina system and former chief of staff under Bill Clinton, will co-chair the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Along with former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., Bowles will lead the 18-member panel to draft a report to reduce the deficit by 2015. Bowles will retire from his UNC presidency at the end of the year.
“Recommendations are a long way from reality, and we will have to put some hard decisions in front of the American public,” Bowles said.
To contain the nation’s debt, spending must be cut and revenues increased, Bowles noted. He added that because entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security exceed national revenue, the country must borrow funds for military and education expenses, as well as all other costs.
“This is something I worked hard on my first time in Washington, and I am committed to restoring fiscal responsibility to this country,” Bowles said.
As chief of staff during the end of Clinton’s second term, Bowles presided over a budget surplus caused by increased taxing and decreased government spending.
And in his time at the helm of UNC, Bowles sought to bring fiscal responsibility to a rapidly expanding school system.
“I think he was the right person at the right time for the university system,” said Hannah Gage, chair of the UNC Board of Governors, which appointed Bowles to presidency almost five years ago. “He came in after a period of rapid growth when we needed to get the house in order and got us operating like a business when every dollar mattered.”
UNC Vice President for Finance Rob Nelson said Bowles’ financial background helped the 17-campus system weather the recession better than many of its peers across the country.
“We sought a balance between our administrative budget and our academic budget,” Nelson said, adding that administrative efforts to cap tuition hikes and fee increases at 6.5 percent annually helped the system emerge strongly from the recession.
Bowles said he is especially proud of initiatives like UNC Tomorrow, a state-wide mission to bring more opportunities to North Carolina residents through instruction, research, scholarship, creative activities and public service.
“We wanted to break down barriers, improve access and affordability and expand distance education to increase the quality and quantity of skills that residents in the state need to compete,” Bowles said.
With Bowles approaching retirement, Gage and her colleagues on the Board are now actively seeking his successor.
“We’re excited and plan on casting a wide net in our national search for Erskine’s replacement,” Gage said. “We feel like we are in a strong position to attract the best candidate possible—we have strengthened the platform.”
Over the next week, the NC Board of Governors will assemble a committee to search for Bowles’ successor, with the hopes of having a candidate by early Fall.
In the meantime, Bowles will balance his time serving both UNC and his country.
“I am doing this for one reason and one reason only—I am doing this for my grandchildren,” Bowles said.
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