The Blueprint for Balance is the product of intense collaboration among Heritage Foundation staff, relying on various data sources developed by Heritage experts and provided by government agencies and private organizations. Their assistance is vital to the success of this product and greatly appreciated.
The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget leads the Blueprint production effort. Research Associate David Ditch played an integral part in the coordination, production, and expansion of the FY 2020 Blueprint for Balance. We are deeply grateful both for his initiative and for his dedication to reducing federal spending. We are particularly grateful for the assistance of Justin Bogie, who serves as Senior Policy Analyst in Fiscal Affairs, for contributing substantially to the current edition of the Blueprint by authoring several of the policy chapters and proposals and for scoring the discretionary savings proposals, as well as his leadership in calculating the cumulative fiscal impact of our budget proposals to achieve balance in fewer than 10 years. We are also particularly grateful to Rachel Greszler, who serves as Research Fellow in Economics, Budget, and Entitlements and who scored mandatory and one-time proposals in addition to authoring and facilitating co-authorship on the essential new chapter focused on reforming the major entitlement programs: Social Security and the major federal health care programs. Adam Michel, Senior Policy Analyst in Fiscal Policy, authored the tax chapter and calculated the Blueprint revenue baseline. Drew Gonshorowski, Senior Policy Analyst for Simulations, and Jamie Bryan Hall, Senior Policy Analyst for Empirical Studies, provided original data analysis of Social Security, health care, and education proposals, and Parker Sheppard provided a dynamic score of the Blueprint’s fiscal and economic impact, using Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis models and resources. Heritage Foundation domestic and foreign policy experts contributed chapters and budget proposals. They are recognized as chapter authors and proposal contacts in an appendix. Without their expertise and cooperation, this Blueprint would not be possible.
Senior Editor William T. Poole refined the language we employed and greatly assisted in the detection and correction of what might otherwise have been embarrassing errors and omissions. Manager of Data Graphics Services John Fleming and Data Graphics Specialist and Editorial Associate Luke Karnick created the helpful charts and tables that appear throughout the book. Therese Pennefather, Director of Research Editors, played a key role in managing the editorial process, keeping the production on schedule. Jay Simon, Senior Designer, Research Projects, was responsible for the design and layout of the Blueprint. Transformation of the Blueprint into electronic formats is made possible by the efforts of Director of Digital Maria Sousa.
We owe a great debt to Jack Spencer, Vice President for the Institute for Economic Freedom, and Paul Winfree, Director of the Thomas A Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, in whose minds the Blueprint originated and whose vision continues to guide production. We also wish to acknowledge our enduring debt to Chairman Barb Van Andel-Gaby and The Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees, Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James, The Heritage Foundation’s founder and former President Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, and Heritage Foundation Senior Advisor Phil Truluck and Executive Vice President Dr. Kim R. Holmes for their support. None of the work at Heritage, and certainly this Blueprint for Balance, would be possible without the generous support of our dedicated donors. We thank them for all they do for The Heritage Foundation and for America.
Romina Boccia
Director Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget
The Heritage Foundation
May 2019
