Reflections on the 2024 Ed Lorenzen Fiscal Internship

By Olabisi Omoniyi-Alake

The time that I have spent working at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has been a transformative learning experience. When I began my internship, I had just graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, with a degree in public policy and a minor in public leadership, but I never had direct experience working in the political arena of Washington, DC. Fortunately, I was accepted into CRFB’s Ed Lorenzen Internship program, named after the late Ed Lorenzen, who was passionate about public service, deeply knowledgeable about fiscal policy, and played a significant role in the passage of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010. As CRFB’s Lorenzen Intern, I gained valuable experience learning more about the federal budgeting process by supporting both the Committee’s Policy and Legislative teams.

With the Policy team, I contributed to policy publications and learned more about the federal budgeting process and the severity of our unsustainable fiscal path. I contributed to research for a member of Congress on Artificial Intelligence and the impact it has on the federal government, and I helped with the weekly Fiscal Dispatch newsletter. As a policy intern, I was able to improve my research and writing skills while simultaneously learning more about fiscal solvency and the importance of bipartisanship.

With the Legislative team, I interacted closely with budget experts on Capitol Hill. I helped the team with the Fiscal Security Leadership Initiative (FSLI) where we informed congressional staff members about national security and federal budgetary issues. As someone who used to intern with the Department of Defense, this opportunity helped to highlight the necessity of budget reform in the defense budget as well as the possible national security risks if reforms are not taken. Furthermore, I attended congressional hearings held on Capitol Hill and drafted memos on budget policy that helped to improve my understanding of the budget process.

Working as the Lorenzen Intern improved my understanding of the intersection between politics and public policy, especially due to my internship falling during the 2024 election. During this time, many of my projects involved monitoring congressional races and aiding the policy team with research on the presidential candidates' tax and economic policies. During my internship, the U.S. gross national debt hit a historic $36 trillion for the first time in history, highlighting the need for the federal government to act against the threat of a debt crisis.

I have previous experience in government affairs and policy work, but none has ever been quite like the Lorenzen Internship at CRFB. The opportunity to learn alongside a talented intern class and budget and policy experts in Washington, DC will be an experience I’ll cherish throughout my career. I am truly honored to have been this year’s Lorenzen Intern and to work with such amazing staff members. This internship experience taught me more about the federal legislative and budget process, as well as helped me learn the importance of fiscal sustainability and the U.S. debt trajectory.

Olabisi Omoniyi-Alake is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, where she majored in Public Policy. She served as the Ed Lorenzen fiscal intern in Fall 2024. For more information about Ed Lorenzen and his contributions to US fiscal policy, see our remembrance here. You can find applications for other internships with CRFB here.