Dennis S. Ippolito, the Eugene McElvaney Professor of Political Science at Southern Methodist University, focuses on national political institutions and federal budget policy. He received a B.A. in history and government from Adelphi University (1964), and both the M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967) in government from the University of Virginia. He held faculty rank at the University of Virginia (1967-1968) and Emory University (1968-1982) including chair of political science (1971-1977) before joining Southern Methodist University (1982-present) where he has served as departmental chair for several terms. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, his influential books include The Budget and National Politics (1978), Congressional Spending (1981), Hidden Spending (1984), Uncertain Legacies (1990), Blunting the Sword (1994), Why Budgets Matter (2003; 2015), Deficits, Debt, and the New Politics of Tax Policy (2012) and Deficit Politics in the United States (2022). He is the recipient of research grants from the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Twentieth Century Fund, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.