Congressional Economist Robert W. Hartman, 68

Robert W. Hartman, 68, an economist who retired from the Congressional Budget Office and had also worked for the Brookings Institution, died of pneumonia Sept. 1 at George Washington University Hospital. He was a longtime resident of the District.

At the Brookings Institution, where he was a research associate and senior fellow for 13 years, Dr. Hartman focused on applying microeconomics to a range of policy questions, including public school financing and compensation for federal employees. When he moved to the Congressional Budget Office, he tried to help lawmakers make sense of the complex federal budget process, particularly after the implementation of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act of 1985. He co-edited several volumes of "Setting National Priorities," a budget office publication.

In June 1980, a few months before the presidential election, he told the New York Times that Congress and the White House would be unable to avoid making hard budget choices regarding guns vs. butter.

"There is an increasing realization that the government pie can't keep growing at past rates, and if you give more to defense, you must give less to everything else," he said. "What is going on now is just a precursor of more difficult decisions to come."

Three years later, Dr. Hartman was contemplating the prospect of budget deficits of $200 billion a year or more for the remainder of the 1980s. He told the Times that the problem was fundamentally political: Without leadership, he said, new procedures would be futile.

"The theme throughout his career was how to make the government work better," said Frank Levy, a professor of urban economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a longtime friend.

Robert William Hartman was born in Brooklyn and received a bachelor's degree in economics, cum laude , from Queens College in 1958. He received a master's degree in 1961 and a doctorate in 1964, both in economics and both from Harvard University.

He taught economics at Brandeis University from 1963 to 1968 and joined the Brookings Institution as a research associate in 1969. He was a senior fellow from 1971 to 1982.

He joined the Congressional Budget Office as a senior analyst in 1982 and became acting deputy director in 1987. From 1991 until he retired in 1996, he was assistant director of the office's Special Studies Division.

His numerous publications included books about compensation for federal employees, setting national priorities and reforming school financing. In "Pay and Pensions for Federal Workers" (1983), he recommended that the government create individual retirement accounts for new federal employees to help bring the federal pension system more in line with the private sector.

Dr. Hartman was 58 when he decided to retire. When Levy asked him why, Dr. Hartman said, somewhat to his friend's chagrin: "Unlike some people, I don't define myself by my work."

He wanted to travel -- and did -- but he mainly wanted to spend more time with friends and family. "Bob had been preparing to be a grandfather for perhaps 20 years," Levy said.

Survivors include his wife of 46 years, Rhona "Ronnie" Hartman of the District; two sons, Peter Hartman of Silver Spring and Michael Hartman of Chevy Chase; and four grandchildren.