The Evolution of Peter Peterson's Spending

Evolution Of Peter G. Peterson's Spending

2007

• The AFL-CIO in essence calls the Blackstone IPO a sham, arguing that it its structure is devised to evade the requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940. The Financial Times (Peterson is a backer) runs headline story is "Union in move to halt Blackstone IPO," yet has no counterpart at the Wall Street Journal or New York Times websites. Doug Lowenstein, head of the newly-created Private Equity Council lobby group, makes a first appearance on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to defend the industry against unions and other critics who say it destroys jobs while using its generous tax status massively to enrich a small group of executives. Motive: Avoid being taxed as a corporation.
• Blackstone IPO leaves Peterson making $1.8 billion in a single day (fees collected by the partners are not taxed as income, at a rate of up to 35 percent, but as capital gains, for which the rate was slashed to 15 percent in 2001 as part of the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthy). The New York Times reported that Blackstone earned $1.1 billion in operating income in the first quarter of 2007 and paid only $14 million in taxes, about 1.3 percent. Peterson planned to donate a large majority of that money (See pg. 216).
• Blackstone Group, paid Ogilvy Government Relations $3.74 million in 2007, which is one of the largest recorded fees to any lobbying firm during a six-month period. Ogilvy said half the payment covered unpaid bills from last year. This was money spent lobbying so they could avoid a tax hike.

2008

• Pete Peterson retires from Blackstone and starts Peter G. Peterson Foundation promising to spend $1 billion to raise awareness about deficit—of which $200 million was spent in 2008.
• Grants: The Concord Coalition received $1.5 million; the Committee on Economic Development received $1 million. In addition to their pledge to the foundation, Peterson gave $8.5 million to the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics.
• Peterson is financing a media blitz. His tendentious documentary--I.O.U.S.A.--opened in 400 theaters and was broadcast on CNN with appropriate solemnity. Peterson bought for $2.5 million.
• September Peterson bought two full pages in the New York Times to urge the next president to create a "bipartisan fiscal responsibility commission".
• View full Report of expenditures at http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/25/where-pete-peterson-spends-his-money-2008-grants/

2009

• About 325-350 million has been given to the foundation by Peterson as of October, 2009.
• Concord Coalition lacks any electoral or grassroots base but does have the ability to get prominent ex-politicians to sign full-page New York Times ads warning of the danger of budget deficits.

2010

• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget received $656,000 from Peterson's foundation in 2010.
• Gallup Poll shows that now Americans find the federal debt as the largest threat to the USA.
• Stephen Schwartzman (Peterson's business partner) writes op-ed, does not think that financial regulation on the banking industry is the right thing to do.
• Peterson Foundation held a bizarre set of 19 faux town hall meetings over the previous weekend to scare participants into compliance and then collect the resulting distorted survey data, presumably to use in a wider PR campaign. Peterson Foundation spent $2,027,470.
• On Nov. 9, 2010, Peterson launched OweNo, an ad campaign to convince America that reducing the federal budget deficit should be the nation's top priority.
• Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform and the Obama National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: Two in the Same? Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform issued a report called "Getting Back in the Black." $880,000 of the funding behind the commission came from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, as well as from the New America Foundation's Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

2011

• Since 2008 his foundation has doled out $383 million of his promised $1 billion pledge. This includes six- and seven-figure donations to groups like the CRFB, the Concord Coalition, and the Committee for Economic Development and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
• Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Hunton And Williams' attorney Richard Wyatt, John Woods and Bob Quackenboss to develop tactics for damaging progressive groups and labor unions, in particular ThinkProgress, the labor coalition called Change to Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.
• March 24th Peterson Foundation publicity held "Fiscal Summit" to raise awareness of the debt crisis, including Paul Ryan. Peterson rented out the good name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the reputation of the Center for American Progress, and EPI. The goal of Peterson's conference was to legitimize the fiscal crisis narrative, and to make sure that "all sides" were represented.
• Peterson personally contributed at least $458 million to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation by the end of 2011.
• Peterson used the highly-respected Columbia Teachers College to develop a program to carry a deficit scare message to high school students in the form of "fiscal responsibility" education. Peterson's foundation paid $2.4 million to fund this message.

2012

• Peterson has already shelled out nearly $2 million to fund his effort to convince college students that Social Security won't be there for them, in a program called Indebted.
• Peterson has given millions to the liberal Center for American Progress, Economic Policy Institute and New America Foundation; the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute; the centrist Brookings Institution and Bipartisan Policy Center, and on and on.
• Republicans supporting Peterson: Boehner; Ryan, and Sen. Rob Portman.
• "CEOs' self-serving deficit manifesto" is taken off of the Wall Street Journal.
• "The Can Kicks Back" and Third Way.
• Come Back America is funded by a 3 year $3.1 million grant from Peterson Foundation.