Charles P. Blahous
Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy

Charles Blahous joined the National Economic Council on February 26, 2001. He is a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, focusing on Social Security. In May of 2001, he was appointed by President Bush to be the Executive Director of the President's bipartisan Commission to Strengthen Social Security. On December 21, 2001, the 16-member Commission, chaired by former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and AOL/Time-Warner COO Richard D. Parsons, delivered their unanimous recommendations to the President.

Blahous served as the executive director of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security from June, 2000 through February, 2001. The Alliance for Worker Retirement Security is a coalition of approximately forty organizations that favor reforming Social Security system according to six principles, including the establishment of personal accounts.

Blahous served as policy director for Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) from 1996-2000. While staffing the Senator's policy initiatives in a wide range of legislative areas, Blahous focused on Social Security reform, including the Senator's chairmanship of the National Commission on Retirement Policy, a bipartisan, bicameral public/private commission convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Before joining Senator Gregg in 1996, Blahous served as legislative director for Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-WY). During his time with Senator Simpson, Blahous staffed the Senator's work on the President's Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, co-chaired by Senators Robert Kerrey (D-NE), and John Danforth (R-MO). Blahous first joined Senator Simpson's staff in 1989 as a Congressional Science Fellow, sponsored by the American Physical Society.

Blahous received a Ph.D. in computational quantum chemistry from the University of California/Berkeley in 1989. He received his undergraduate degree, also in chemistry, from Princeton University in 1985.