Rivlin was appointed the first Director of the newly created Congressional Budget Office (CBO), serving until 1983.
On February 24, 1975, Alice Rivlin was appointed as the founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency created by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to provide Congress with independent analysis of budgetary and economic issues.
As the first person to lead this brand-new institution, Rivlin faced the challenge of building an organization from scratch, establishing its credibility, methodology, and independence from both the executive branch and partisan pressures within Congress. She assembled a team of economists and built a reputation for rigorous, nonpartisan analysis that would become the CBO's hallmark for decades to come.
Her leadership was historically significant not only because she was the first woman to head a major federal budget agency, but also because she set the institutional culture and professional standards that continue to define the CBO's work today. She served as director until 1983, guiding the agency through its formative years and establishing it as an indispensable, trusted source of fiscal information for lawmakers of both parties.
This achievement made Rivlin one of the most powerful women in Washington fiscal policy circles at a time when women were largely absent from top economic policymaking roles.