PRESS RELEASE
-For Immediate Release-
September 10, 2008

Contact: Brian Gumm, (202) 683-4812, bgumm@ombwatch.org

Robert McIntyre Wins Award for Outstanding Public Interest Work

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2008—OMB Watch is pleased to announce that Robert McIntyre, Director of Citizens for Tax Justice, has been inducted into the Public Interest Hall of Fame for his outstanding public interest work in the Washington area and on the national stage. McIntyre is a native of Attleboro, MA.

The Public Interest Hall of Fame Awards are part of OMB Watch's year-long 25th Anniversary celebration and honor the "unsung heroes" who have made their mark in making the world a better place and will leave an important legacy. Public Interest Hall of Fame Award winners will be recognized at OMB Watch's 25th Anniversary event in Washington, DC, the evening of Sept. 17.

McIntyre's colleagues describe him as "a dedicated warrior in the battle for a fair and effective tax system for over two decades." Since the late 1970s, he has emphasized the important role that government can and should play, through taxation, in leveling the playing field for all Americans.

Upon learning of the award, McIntyre said, "When I started my career in progressive tax reform some 32 years ago, I couldn't have dreamt that one day I'd be inducted into OMB Watch's Public Interest Hall of Fame. What a wonderful honor."

Gary D. Bass, Executive Director of OMB Watch, offered his congratulations. "The concentration of wealth in a few powerful hands poses great risks to our democracy. For more than three decades, Bob has been a tireless advocate for a more equitable tax system that reduces those risks. Despite his accomplishments and commitment to important American ideals, Bob rarely receives the credit he deserves. Therefore, I'm thrilled that OMB Watch is able to present Bob with one of seven Public Interest Hall of Fame Awards."

The full list of award winners is available at /files/25th. There were roughly 100 nominees considered for the award. For more information about OMB Watch, see http://www.ombwatch.org/article/archive/250.

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Robert McIntrye Bio

Robert S. McIntyre is director of Citizens for Tax Justice. CTJ is a nonpartisan research and advocacy group that fights for tax fairness—at the federal, state and local levels. Widely respected on Capitol Hill as "the average taxpayer's voice in Washington," CTJ was ranked at the top of the Washington Monthly's list of America's "best public interest groups."

Since he began his career in tax reform in 1976, Bob has written hundreds of articles on tax policy issues, in publications like the Washington Post, the New York Times, the New Republic, and academic journals. He also frequently appears on television and radio programs, and is a contributing editor at The American Prospect, where he wrote a column, "The Taxonomist," from 2000 through 2006. Bob often advises government officials on tax policy, both informally and in written testimony.

Profiles of Bob have appeared in The Wall Street Journal (May 2, 1985), Student Lawyer (Dec. 1985), National Journal (May 3, 1986), The National Law Journal (July 7, 1986), Smart Money (1995), The New York Times (May 21, 2001) (which called his analytical work "indispensable"), The Attleboro Sun (Sept. 27, 2004) and The Hill (Oct. 5, 2004).

CTJ's analyses of tax proposals are cited regularly in the media and by legislators and candidates in both parties. For example, in the mid-1980s, Bob's detailed reports on corporate tax avoidance are credited with providing the spark for the bipartisan, loophole-closing Tax Reform Act of 1986. The Washington Post said that the studies represented a "key turning point" that "had the effect of touching a spark to kindling" (June 29, 1986) and "helped to raise public ire against corporate tax evaders" (July 18, 1986). The Wall Street Journal (July 18, 1986) said that the studies "helped propel the tax-overhaul effort." CTJ's most recent corporate tax study, Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years, was published in September 2004.

Tax Notes (Mar. 21, 2001) pointed out that "with government estimators muffled by their political overlords" during the debates over the 2001 Bush tax cuts, CTJ "has filled the void and freely supplied the press as well as members of Congress with distributional analyses" that are "unbiased" and "of extremely high quality."

CTJ is also active in state and local tax debates around the country, and publishes a definitive analysis of state and local taxes called Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, in 1996 and 2004 (2nd edition), with a new edition expected in 2008.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1975) and Providence College (1970) with an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center (1976), Bob is a member of the Massachusetts and D.C. Bars.

Bob and his wife Nancy, an artist, have two children, Molly, 28, and Jake, 24.

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OMB Watch is a nonprofit government watchdog organization dedicated to promoting government accountability, citizen participation in public policy decisions, and the use of fiscal and regulatory policy to serve the public interest