The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRIBUTE TO MARK BOOTH” mentioning the Federal Reserve System was published in the Senate section on pages S1763 on March 15, 2018.
The Federal Reserve is the US's central bank, expanding many times during great financial uncertainty and panic. It has faced numerous criticisms since its creation in 1913, such as making the Great Depression worse and for lacking transparency and audits.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO MARK BOOTH
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, today I wish to honor and recognize the outstanding service of Mark Booth on his retirement after 31 years of public service at the Congressional Budget Office. Mark's expertise as a forecaster and modeler has made him an invaluable contributor to CBO's analysis of the budget outlook. Since 2003, Mark has been chief of the revenue estimating unit of CBO's tax analysis division, overseeing its forecasts of tax revenues and cost estimates of legislative proposals.
Mark came to CBO in 1986 from the private sector, where he began his career as a forecaster and analyst. He took over responsibility for CBO's corporate income tax projections and quickly demonstrated his analytic skills. As a result, Mark's portfolio continuously expanded, as he soon also became the lead analyst for CBO's projections of individual income taxes and Federal Reserve System's earnings. In addition, Mark joined the tax analysis division's cost-estimating team, overseeing assistant analysts to produce timely estimates of legislative proposals. Over those years, Mark won the CBO Director's Award for Exceptional Service, the agency's highest recognition for work by a CBO staffer, twice.
In recognition of Mark's abilities and breadth of experience, he was promoted to the position of unit chief for revenue estimating in 2003, and he has overseen the division's projections and cost estimates ever since. As head of the revenue estimating unit, Mark has led his staff in providing high-quality and timely projections of revenues and analysis of budget issues. Mark has made valuable contributions to numerous reports, testimonies, and cost estimates in just about every subject area covered by CBO, including the economy, energy, transportation, and healthcare. He also has served a crucial role in trying to make CBO's analysis more transparent, preparing several background papers that describe CBO's methods of forecasting revenues and evaluate the agency's projections record.
I know my colleagues join me in extending our thanks and appreciation to Mark for his service to our Nation. We wish him well in his retirement from CBO and hope he will continue in future years to lend his expertise to the analysis of important tax policy issues.
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