Jim Talent is a visiting senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and concurrently a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he specializes in defense and national security issues.
Sen. Talent has been active in public policy for the past 30 years, including representing Missouri in both the US Senate and US House of Representatives. While serving in the US Senate, he was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower for four years. Always interested in America’s strategic objectives and demands on the United States military, Sen. Talent formed a special congressional panel in his freshman year in the House to address the decline in military readiness.
In addition to his focus on national security, Sen. Talent also was a leading voice on welfare issues throughout his congressional career. As a freshman member in the House, he introduced the Real Welfare Reform Act of 1994, which became the basis for the bipartisan reforms enacted as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. As a senator, he introduced the Compassion and Personal Responsibility Act of 2003 to build on the success of the 1996 welfare reform package.
Sen. Talent has a B.A. from the Washington University in St. Louis and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.