Michael Linden
Senior Policy Fellow, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Washington, DC
Experience
- White House Office of Management and Budget (Biden administration)
- U.S. Senate
- Groundwork Collaborative
Expertise
- U.S. economic policy
- Federal budget
- Fiscal policy
- Tax and revenue policy
Education
- University of California-Berkeley, M.P.P.
- Brown University, B.A.
Recent Coverage
SEP 28, 2023
Washington Post | U.S. government tells federal employees a shutdown may be imminent
Michael Linden, a former top official at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the notices reflected a hard political reality: Unlike past spending battles that yielded an 11th-hour deal, “the chances of a shutdown are much higher.”
“If you’re 48 hours out from a potential shutdown, but it’s very clear there’s a [deal] on its path, then you might not do that,” he said. “But if there isn’t, you are going to have to tell agencies to tell their teams, so people can start to plan.”
SEP 27, 2023
The New York Times | U.S. Government Shutdown Is Unlikely to Cause an Immediate Recession
Michael Linden, a former economic aide to Mr. Biden who is now a senior policy fellow at a think tank, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said immediate economic effects from the shutdown could force Republican leaders in the House to quickly pass a funding bill to reopen the government. “There’s a reason shutdowns tend to be pretty short,” Mr. Linden said. “They end up causing disruptions that people don’t like.”
SEP 26, 2023
TIME | Kevin McCarthy’s Shutdown Dilemma
Michael Linden, a former Office of Management and Budget official who was closely involved in the negotiations that led to the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal, says it is “extremely unusual” for the government to shut down not long after congressional leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on overall spending levels. “My impression absolutely was that they were negotiating in good faith and that they intended to stick to the terms and the contours of the deal,” Linden says of past budget talks between McCarthy and Biden.
“There may have never been a shutdown where the blame for causing it has been so crystal clear,” Linden says. “This is a problem that has been caused entirely within the Republican [conference] in the House.”
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About Michael
Michael Linden is a senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. He has more than 15 years of experience in economic policy roles, ranging from government service to think tanks to advocacy organizations.
Immediately prior to joining Equitable Growth, Linden served in the Biden Administration and was a Senior Advisor and then the Executive Associate Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he worked on a wide array of public policies and was integrally involved in producing the President’s budget, as well negotiating the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, among other responsibilities.
Linden also previously served as a senior advisor on the Senate Budget and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committees under the leadership of Sen. Patty Murray. Linden was the founding Executive Director of the Groundwork Collaborative, as well as the inaugural managing director for policy and research at The Hub Project. He also was the managing director of economic policy at the Center for American Progress.
Linden has been cited and quoted by numerous publications, both national and local.
Linden earned his B.A. in political science from Brown University, and his Master of Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.
