Professor of Public Policy, University of Virginia
Dr. Ray Scheppach retired as the executive director of the National Governors Association (NGA) in March 2011, a post he held since 1983. He is currently a professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.
Prior to his position at NGA, Dr. Scheppach worked for seven years at the Congressional Budget Office, serving the last two years as deputy director. Previous to that, he worked for seven years in economic consulting and two years as an economist with the Standard Oil Company (Ohio).
Under his leadership, NGA became one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, ranked 12th by Fortune magazine in its 1999 annual survey of the most influential trade associations, labor unions, and interest groups. As an advocate for federalism, Dr. Scheppach has testified before Congress on behalf of the nation’s governors on numerous occasions.
Sep 28, 2023 02:44 am UTC| Politics
Congress has just days to keep the federal government from grinding to a halt, and a last-minute deal seems increasingly unlikely. The problem is that lawmakers need to pass a dozen appropriations bills or a single...
A brief history of debt ceiling crises and the political chaos they've unleashed
May 14, 2023 05:10 am UTC| Economy
There have been numerous fiscal crises in the United States where Congress has either failed to pass a budget on time or there were doubts that the federal debt ceiling would be raised, which could cause the U.S. to...
Why states didn't go broke from the pandemic
May 09, 2021 10:08 am UTC| Economy
During the summer of 2020, there were many news reports about the impending state fiscal crisis due to the pandemic. A July 7 article on CNBC with the headline Cuts to basic services loom as coronavirus ravages local...
Who wants to be a governor now?
Apr 13, 2020 03:36 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics
Governors Have the Best Political Jobs in America is the name of one of my lectures in a leadership course I occasionally teach at the University of Virginia. In that class, I describe how governors have huge...
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