Peterson-Pew Commission Uses Jingoism to Advance Budget Agenda

Monday 04 January 2010

by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

We need to cut the budget deficit because the foreigners are taking over. That is the word according to a new report, "Red Ink Rising," from a commission financed by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Pew Foundation. The commission warns us that foreigners now hold almost 50 percent of the national debt. This is one of the main points of its stern warning that we must get the deficit under control.

Before anyone gets too concerned about the foreign menace, it is important to consider the source of this report. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation was founded by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire Wall Street tycoon and former Nixon commerce secretary. Peterson has a long history of funding efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. Before his latest foundation venture, he started the Concord Coalition and wrote books with menacing titles like "Gray Dawn," that foretold of the demographic disaster that would be created by the retirement of the baby boom cohort.