Amber Cottle’s years negotiating trade deals with foreign countries haven’t gone unnoticed as she wades through the bitterly divisive area of tax reform. “That experience has served me well in this job, which is negotiation more than anything else,” said Cottle, who last year was named Democratic staff director for the Senate Finance Committee after serving for six years as chief international trade counsel.
The committee oversees trade, Medicare and Social Security, but chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has made tax reform his top priority for the past three years. Upon her promotion in December, Baucus called Cottle “an expert negotiator, skills which will prove vital in my efforts to reform the nation’s tax system.”
