Peter G. Peterson Foundation

The newly established Peter G. Peterson Foundation today announced its first round of eight grants, among them one to Public Agenda, the opinion research and citizen engagement organization, for $500,000 to expand its Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances public engagement initiative with the two-year project “Students Face Up to the Nation’s Finances” to advance college campus conversations on the United States’ looming fiscal crisis.

As President Obama seeks to steer the Supreme Court in a new direction, what sort of leader should he look for in his first appointee? An unwavering jurist who will articulate a new liberal judicial philosophy? Or a judge who will nudge the court from the center, winning over swing votes?

Elizabeth Sherman, founder and former director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, is currently adjunct professor at George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

The president should appoint someone who has the educational and professional training as well as the personal leadership skills necessary to counterbalance the dominance of the Scalia-Roberts-Alito-Thomas wing and persuade centrists like Justice Kennedy of the merits of a more liberal interpretation of the law. He must choose someone with the leadership ability, intellectual heft and personal confidence to pull the court out of its conservative rut, where we find it to be overly reflective of the politics and perspective of the Bush-Cheney administration and the Republican right.

David Walker, former comptroller general of the United States, is president and chief executive of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

The duty of a judge is to make decisions based on applying the facts to the law and in a manner consistent with the Constitution. Any nominee should be committed to this basic standard. President Obama should keep in mind that while political activists tend to come from the ideological fringes, statistically valid voter research surveys make it clear that the country is in the "sensible center."

“We must move beyond crisis management approaches and start to address some of the key fiscal and other challenges facing this country if we want our future to be better than our past.” –David M. Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S. and head of the Government Accountability Office, currently president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Let’s move beyond trucking for a moment and look at the big picture where our country is concerned. At the moment, we’re struggling with one of the toughest economic recessions ever to afflict the U.S. (one in many ways largely of our own misguided making), which is a reflection of a massive global economic downturn.

If President Barack Obama sincerely wants to expand health care access with a broad, bipartisan vote, here’s how he can do it:

Tackle entitlement spending first.



Once that goal is achieved — and doing so is a lot more realistic than is enacting universal health care — Obama will have more than enough political capital to make health care more accessible in the U.S.

But unless entitlement spending is first brought under control, then expanding health care access simply will add a new entitlement on top of the ones we already have.

We can’t afford Social Security and Medicare now, most Americans know. How will that situation improve by, say, expanding Medicare to cover the 40-some million Americans who currently are uninsured?

The answer is, the situation won’t be improved. Instead, adding entitlements will make our situation much worse and already has authorities talking of America losing, among other signs of a solid fiscal foundation, its AAA rating by Moody’s.

David Walker, the former comptroller general who’s now the CEO of the Peter Peterson Foundation, is the most credible when he raises the alarm.

“America’s health care system needs fixing, but the administration has got the steps out of sequence, in my view,” Peterson wrote recently.

“The president is advocating expanding health care coverage before we have proven our ability to control health care costs — and before we make a significant down payment on the federal government’s tens of trillions of dollars in current unfunded health care promises, notably from Medicare.”

Tackling the reforms in that sequence threatens to run up a staggering debt far larger and more dangerous than any before in American history, according to Peterson.

Instead, America must get its fiscal house in order, and then and only then, tackle health care reform.

To do so, we need a “fiscal future commission” to map entitlement and budget-control reforms.

“There’s only one argument on the other side, really,” wrote Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, in a column supporting the idea.

“You can find it on Page 10 of the Congressional Budget Office analysis of President Obama’s budget plans. There you see that Obama proposes to spend, year after year, 23 or 24 percent of the national economy, while proposing to levy in revenue, year after year, only 18 or 19 percent. The result: the national debt, which is equal to 41 percent of the national economy today, will rise to 82 percent by the end of the next decade.”

Entitlement reform is needed to avoid that fate.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has been a strong supporter of the commission idea in the Senate. The senator likely understands that “reforming entitlements first” is the key to a successful Obama presidency. He should make that case forcefully to the Obama administration — and the administration should listen.

In March, 78 percent of voters listed “getting the economy back on track” as their top priority. This suggests that a bipartisan crusade to reform entitlements would win broad support, because entitlement reform is the key to a federal budget that is respected, is sustainable and works.

At some point (soon, we all hope) this recession will lift, freight will start to flow, and truckers large and small will get back to making money again. Yet looming over all of this – indeed, darkening the skies of our nation’s future – is something we’re simply not addressing, either as individuals, companies, or governments entities. It’s not about oil and energy consumption (though that’s a major concern), nor is it about the security of our freight networks against terrorists (still again another big worry).

This issue is both a near- and long-term millstone hanging around America’s neck – and the work required to remove it will be Herculean and involve a level sacrifice I highly doubt the citizens of our nation are ready to endure.

I’m talking, of course, about government deficits and debt – the trillion dollars of red ink that keeps growing like some unholy leviathan; a wrecking ball of mammoth proportions that leaves us financially reliant on foreign nations, such as China, that are also competitors in global business and politics. Unless we start answering some VERY tough questions on our financial priorities – and then make the painful cuts necessary to achieve them – we’re going to find ourselves in deep trouble. And it’ll be the kind of trouble that may make the current economic suffering pale by comparison.

David Walker – former U.S. comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and now president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation – wrote several columns about this very subject, posted at CNN.com over the last several months. This is a guy who’s seen the America’s fiscal ledger up close and it makes for some pretty frightening reading.

Former U.S. congressman Mickey Edwards is vice president of the Aspen Institute, where he directs the Institute's Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership.

Leadership in a legislative or executive position is one thing; leadership on a court of law, with its more narrowly defined mission, is something quite different. There is no question that various skills -- persuasion, bridging differences, forging compromises -- can be important tools even on the bench. But the single most important job of a jurist is to see that the law is properly applied. Leadership in creating law, shaping society, etc., is a function of the political branches, not the courts.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation grant to Public Agenda supports the expansion of the Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances initiative, to refine and disseminate a package of learning materials designed to raise college students' awareness of our national fiscal challenges and engage college students across the nation in a discussion of the solutions. The materials, which will be provided to at least 500 colleges and universities, can be adopted as mini-courses within existing classes. Intensive work with four colleges – to be identified in the first year of the grant – will yield even more innovative uses of the materials. The initiative aims to involve 20,000 to 30,000 college students in using the tools and for professors and colleges not directly recruited by Public Agenda to begin adopting the materials, as well.

The Students Face Up to the Nation’s Finances initiative will coordinate with two other organizations that have been instrumental in the initial piloting of the student program, The National Academy of Public Administration and The Concord Coalition.

Founded by the senior chairman of The Blackstone Group, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation is dedicated to increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of several key challenges threatening America's future, and to accelerating action on them. In the near term, the Foundation is devoting most of its efforts to issues threatening the nation's financial future.

The Secret Meeting of Billionaires

The meeting being referred to was a secret meeting where, “A dozen of the richest people in the world met for an unprecedented private gathering at the invitation of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to talk about giving away money,” held at Rockefeller University, and included notable philanthropists such as Gates, Buffett, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad, Oprah Winfrey, David Rockefeller Sr. and Ted Turner. One attendee stated that, “It wasn’t secret,” but that, “It was meant to be a gathering among friends and colleagues. It was something folks have been discussing for a long time. Bill and Warren hoped to do this occasionally. They sent out an invite and people came.” Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer said, “Given how serious these economic times are, I don't think it's surprising these philanthropists came together,” and that, “They don't typically get together and ask each other for advice.” The three hosts of the meeting were Buffet, Gates and David Rockefeller.

At the meeting, “participants steadfastly refused to reveal the content of the discussion. Some cited an agreement to keep the meeting confidential. Spokesmen for Mr. Buffett, Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Gates, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Soros and Ms. Winfrey and others dutifully declined comment, though some confirmed attendance.” Reports indicate that, “They discussed how to address the global slump and expand their charitable activities in the downturn.”

The UK newspaper The Times reported that these “leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population,” and that they “discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.” Interestingly, “The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at ‘security briefings’.” Further, “The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause’ that could harness their interests,” and what was decided upon was that, “they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.” Ultimately, “a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat,” and that, “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.” One guest at the meeting said that, “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government.”

The Leaked Report

Bilderberg investigative reporter Daniel Estulin reportedly received from his inside sources a 73-page Bilderberg Group meeting wrap-up for participants, which revealed that there were some serious disagreements among the participants. “The hardliners are for dramatic decline and a severe, short-term depression, but there are those who think that things have gone too far and that the fallout from the global economic cataclysm cannot be accurately calculated if Henry Kissinger's model is chosen. Among them is Richard Holbrooke. What is unknown at this point: if Holbrooke's point of view is, in fact, Obama's.” The consensus view was that the recession would get worse, and that recovery would be “relatively slow and protracted,” and to look for these terms in the press over the next weeks and months.

Estulin reported, “that some leading European bankers faced with the specter of their own financial mortality are extremely concerned, calling this high wire act "unsustainable," and saying that US budget and trade deficits could result in the demise of the dollar.” One Bilderberger said that, “the banks themselves don't know the answer to when (the bottom will be hit).” Everyone appeared to agree, “that the level of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.” Further, “someone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.” One attendee stated that, “Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the '30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt. Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.”

According to Jim Tucker, Bilderberg is working on setting up a summit in Israel from June 8-11, where “the world’s leading regulatory experts” can “address the current economic situation in one forum.” In regards to the proposals put forward by Carl Bildt to create a world treasury department and world department of health under the United Nations, the IMF is said to become the World Treasury, while the World Health Organization is to become the world department of health. Bildt also reaffirmed using “climate change” as a key challenge to pursue Bilderberg goals, referring to the economic crisis as a “once-in-a-generation crisis while global warming is a once-in-a-millennium challenge.” Bildt also advocated expanding NAFTA through the Western hemisphere to create an American Union, using the EU as a “model of integration.”

The IMF reportedly sent a report to Bilderberg advocating its rise to becoming the World Treasury Department, and “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner enthusiastically endorsed the plan for a World Treasury Department, although he received no assurance that he would become its leader.” Geithner further said, “Our hope is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight.”

President Obama will be hosting a summit on “fiscal responsibility” this week. The exact purpose of such a summit at a time when the world economy is collapsing from a decade of financial irresponsibility is not clear. However, one name on the guest list does stand out: Peter G. Peterson. (Full disclosure: I am also on the list).

Those who follow debates on budget issues closely have probably heard of Peter G. Peterson. Mr. Peterson has been a prominent figure weighing in on budget debates for close to two decades.

Mr. Peterson was the Commerce Secretary in the Nixon administration. He then went on to make billions of dollars as one of the top executives at the Blackstone Group, a private equity fund. Mr. Peterson is known as one of the top beneficiaries of the fund managers’ tax break, through which he personally pocketed tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Peterson has never been shy about using his Wall Street wealth to try to cut Social Security and Medicare, and he recently stepped up his efforts. Last year he spent $1 billion to endow the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which seems to have destroying these programs at the top of its agenda. (Mr. Peterson also has a think tank named after him, the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics.)

Peterson’s main story is that these programs are bankrupting the government and will impose an unbearable burden on future generations. Of course, the reality is that we have a broken health care system. The projections of scary budget deficits that Peterson’s crew constantly cites is based almost entirely on projections of exploding health care costs. If the United States can get its health care system in order, as every other country has done, then we would be projecting enormous budget surpluses as far as the eye can see.

It is remarkable that the Peterson crew can continue to whine about generation inequality even after we just saw the most enormous redistribution from older generations to younger generations in the history of the world. The $8 trillion in wealth lost in the collapse of the housing bubble was mostly held by older workers and retirees. The $7 trillion lost in the stock market collapse was also primarily held by older workers and retirees.

The beneficiaries of these huge price declines will be younger workers, and those yet to enter the labor force, who will be able to buy homes and stock at prices far lower than they would have paid just two years ago. This huge generational redistribution would cause serious economists to change their view of inter-generational fairness. After all, how much money do they think the baby boom cohort should be forced to surrender?

However, this massive redistribution from older generations to younger ones has just caused the Peterson crew to redouble their efforts. After all, the Peterson crew somehow couldn’t see an $8 trillion housing bubble as it was growing. Why should they pay any attention to it now, just because its collapse has thrown the world economy into the worst downturn since the Great Depression?

Unfortunately, instead of being subject to the ridicule they so richly deserve, the Peterson crew is treated reverentially by the media. Ostensibly serious news outlets suspend normal journalistic practices in discussing the Peterson gang.

This deference is best evidenced by the way the Peterson Foundation is described in news stories. Instead of describing the Peterson Foundation by its political leanings, in a recent article the Washington Post characterized the Foundation as an organization that “advocates for federal fiscal responsibility.” The New York Times described the Foundation as having been “formed to raise awareness about the nation’s economic challenges."

Every organization has boilerplate wording that describe its mission. (The Center for Economic and Policy Research “was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives.”) News outlets never use these descriptions in their coverage – except in the case of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

The public would be right to be outraged that a Wall Street billionaire is trying to take away the core social insurance programs that they will be dependent on in their old age. It was the Wall Street crew that wrecked the economy, costing millions of people their jobs and tens of millions their life savings. Now Peterson wants to use much of his Wall Street winnings to take away the only source of support that tens of millions of retirees have left.

But no one expects ethical behavior from Wall Street tycoons. The public does expect a little more from the media. The people who report on budget issues should be able to step back and assess the issues themselves rather than just parrot the lines that the Peterson Foundation has fed them. And they should be able to sufficiently contain their enthusiasm for Peterson’s quest that they describe his Foundation in the same sort of language they use to describe the other actors involved in this