From Institute For Policy Studies: http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/for_petes_sake_whats_happened_to_our_democracy
One billionaire has the wherewithal to totally redirect America’s political discourse.
By Sam Pizzigati
December 5, 2012
Down through the millennia, specific individuals have changed the course of history. Some made their indelible mark through their intellect, some through their courage, and still others through the depth and breadth of their vision.
But you don’t need smarts, courage, or vision to change history. You just need a ton of money, the sort of fortune that 86-year-old Peter Peterson has amassed over his years wheeling and dealing on Wall Street.
Peterson, one of the co-founders of the Blackstone private equity firm, has been obsessing for years over federal budget deficits. Now his obsession is shoving the nation toward a “fiscal cliff” that might well end up chopping billions out of Social Security and all sorts of programs near and dear to the hearts of America’s working families.
These cutbacks make no sense. The current federal budget deficit directly reflects the bursting of the housing bubble five years ago and the resulting Great Recession, as well as the price tag of our unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Put people back to work, rebuild the economy, and end the wars, as progressive economists note, and that deficit would wither.
These progressive economists, unfortunately, don’t have hundreds of millions of spare dollars to make their case to the American public. Pete Peterson does.
Five years ago, Peterson sold the bulk of his stake in Blackstone. That sale added $1.8 billion to Peterson’s already ample personal fortune.
A year later, with a $1 billion outlay from that fortune, Peterson established the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to target “undeniable, unsustainable, and untouchable” threats to America’s fiscal future.
Peterson’s foundation almost immediately began dispensing millions from its imposing stash of cash, funding everything from a high school curriculum to a “fiscal wake-up tour.” Other millions, a National Journal analysis points out, went to think tanks across the political spectrum.
Three years ago, Peterson dollars helped fund the high-profile panel known as the Simpson-Bowles Commission. This theoretically “bipartisan” maneuver pitched social spending cuts as an essential ingredient in any “responsible” approach to deficit reduction.
Continue reading at: http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/for_petes_sake_whats_happened_to_our_democracy
