Taking Washington on the road.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: Conference notes

FEI took its popular Washington Policy Conference on the road June 12 for an update at Chicago's Metropolitan Club. The event was co-sponsored by the Chicago Chapter; the Platinum sponsor was Ernst & Young. Elite sponsors were Chatham Financial and Towers Watson.

Janeen McGreal, CFO of Lee & Associates of Illinois and incoming president of the Chicago Chapter, welcomed all and gave some introductory remarks on the importance of monitoring policy changes in Washington that have real impact on businesses in the Midwest.

The first session, View from Washington, featured Mark Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, who said he had "bad news" for the end of the year. That news relates to the potential catastrophe that could occur--what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called going over a "financial cliff"--unless congressional action is taken. "Bad policies and bad timing," Goldwein said, "could put us back in recession."

Goldwein spent nine months in 2010 as associate director of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (the Fiscal Commission); in 2011 he served for three months as a senior budget analyst on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the Super Committee). He described the process of trying to get the federal budget in check.

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"Putting out an ambitious plan is easy," said Goldwein, adding that Fiscal Commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson "wanted a big, bold plan." The plan needed 14 votes of the 18 members to ensure its findings were presented to Congress for review, but managed only 11 votes of support. The good news, however, is that the 11 votes it did receive were bipartisan.

A panel discussion on Tax Reform Options and the Impact on Senior Financial Executives was moderated by Barbara M. Angus, principal, International Tax Services for Ernst & Young. A panelist, Robert J. Carroll, principal, Quantitative Economics and Statistics for E&Y, noted the "elephant in the room is the longterm fiscal situation over the next 10-20 years." Greece, he said, "has a good head start."

Norman Richter, vice president, Taxes, for Baxter International, who formerly held various tax roles throughout the federal government, urged those in the...