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When I wrote this piece, I just guessed that Matt Bai was relying on garbage from the Catfood Commission or its tools in his meretricious reporting on Social Security. Reader TomThumb checked for himself and found out that a) Bai was relying on information from the New America Foundation and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, b) that the CRFB is a partner of the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform, and c) the PPCBR is a tool of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. He also thinks that maybe we shouldn’t describe the New America Foundation as “left-leaning”.
Now one might be forgiven for thinking that Bai was just making it up when he described the New America Foundation as his source, and that he called it non-partisan, a group that just wants “to present the situation for what it is.” People who pay attention know that Peter Peterson has been trying to gut Social Security for years. He gave a billion dollars to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which didn’t dent the vast fortune he got in the finance business. Now he uses that foundation to fund his obsession with destroying Social Security.
The New America Foundation thanked Peterson’s foundation for its gift of between $250,000 and $999,999 in 2009. Another of his pet projects is the CRFB, which created a budget adjustment game in which the goal is specious and the choices so limited as to be pointless. It is funded in part with money from Peterson’s foundation. It is housed at the New America Foundation, which lists it as a related tax-exempt organization on its Form 990.
This is the way ideologues like Peterson operate. They give money to foundations with respectable reputations and the foundations provide a non-partisan veneer to their little obsessions.
As to the claim that the New America Foundation is left-leaning, here are the directors:
Liaquat Ahamed: investment manager
David Bradley: owner of Atlantic Media Company, member Trilateral Commission, Council of Foreign Relations
James Fallows: writer
Roger Ferguson: chair TIAA-CREF, former vice-chair of the Fed
Francis Fukuyama: Professor at Johns Hopkins, writer of The End of History
Atul Gawande: doctor and writer
William Gerrity: real estate
Ted Halstead: founder and author of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics
Noosheen Hashemi: philanthropist, formerly officer of Oracle
Rita Hauser: lawyer with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Chair of The International Peace Institute
Laurene Powell Jobs: heads social reform group
Zachary Karabell: investment management and economic research
Jeffrey Leonard: Global Environment Fund, a private equity firm
Kati Marton: reporter, human rights advocate
Walter Russell Mead: Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations
Richard Medley: investment fund manager
Lenny Mendonca: Director in McKinsey & Company
Eric Schmidt: CEO Google
Bernard L. Schwartz: private investment firm, formerly CEO of Loral Space & Communications
Laura D’Andrea Tyson: Dean Business School at Berkeley, former economics advisor to Clinton
Daniel Yergin: Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates
Fareed Zakaria: Editor-at-large, Time Magazine.
The CEO is Steven Coll, formerly with the Washington Post, and a writer for the New Yorker. Left-leaning? The public figures are a conventional consensus group of the usual suspects from within the Beltway. Then there are some wealthy people and one or two academics. It isn’t just new economists Bai needs to meet. He needs to meet some real left-leaning people. There are quite a few of us, but we don’t get paid by Peter Peterson or his foundation.
(photo: Matt Bai by MNicoleM via flickr)
39 Comments
DC really is its own little world, isn’t it? “Liberal” economists there seem to be the ones who don’t want to re-establish debtors’ prisons.
“Liberal” = Eric Schmidt’s on it. Of course, he’s 1) vastly outnumbered, and 2) not necessarily liberal.
Matt Bai laid down in The Veal Pen and woke up covered in Lemon Buerre Blanc w/Non Pariel Capers.
Great read Mas and rccd as always.
The NAF is the young, edgy and hip Think Tank, as they catapult the corporatist propaganda. Most of these phony shills are sponsored by the same old disaster capitalists.
NAF lets Philip Mudd, expert on Al Qaeda and falafels catapult the warmonger lies. I documented the lies told at NAF by Mudd, the lies about the Christmas Day Bomber, the lies about David Headley DEA/CIA agent who helped plan Mumbai 26/11. In fact almost everything Mudd says is a lie to promote endless wars.
Peter Peterson has been one of the biggest supporters of Endless War. He set up a “Corporation for Public Diplomacy” to catapult endless war propaganda paid for by taxpayers.
Yes, such people are poached to mouthwatering tenderness before grilling and serving at the Washington Four Seasons Bourbon Steak.
Our establishment is packed with liberals who are not liberal. Charities which are anything but charitable. Non government organizations which are jointly run by Oligarchs and the US State Department.
When they use the word bipartisan that just means that they all agree to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
And non-partisan, that’s just thier way of saying that they own the place. Lock, stock and barrel full of Congress critters.
great reporting. I hope you have sent this to Matt Bai. So Koch has a friend to destroy those things we hold dear. Why? for money?
Larue, ROFLMAO.
Gotta say I’ve never seen a photo of Matt Bai; just luv his hair cut.
hehehe – my first thought was
omg, Christine O’Donnell was right, we have mice with human size brains !
Great! Could we please have that hilarious recipe? ;~)
LOL!
Since men/all commentators on media, go outta their way to opine on women’s appearances, on principle I go outta my way to comment on men’s.
Didn’t you know? Bald Bi Guys are HAWT!
Well, I dated one who was almost bald once, but I admit to preferring hair.
Matt Bai (blog response):
Maya MacGuineas, President of CRFB, writing in The Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/09/lets-get-unreal-to-stop-from-drowning-in-red-ink/63397/
guilty !
Here’s what I wrote on Bill Maher’s blog:
Mr. Maher, you let Republibot lies about Social Security stand unrefuted.
Social Security is deficit neutral. It is the workers’ money.
How can we afford open ended wars and we cannot afford Social Security. Social Security is not a part of the regular Budget, anyway.
Simple. Yet you and your panel were left blindsided by those two cretins.
Social Security benefits can easily be maintained by raising the cap on payroll contributions, yet the favored actions by Obama’s Catfood Commission are raising the retirement age and cutting benefits.
Are your hands tied?
Every time I hear about the NAF, I want to ask what the view is from Steve Clemons window in some ‘exotic’ location is. What a narcissistic exercise that is, although admittedly less crazy than most other stuff you’ll read.
Teddy Partridge is upstairs!
Sunday Late Night: Bush Tax-Cut Democrats
Petty shit, to be sure, but I learned how effective it might be a couple of decades ago when a male Wall St. colleague of mine showed up at a mostly female professional event, and was just mortified at being one of the few guys there.
I haven’t trapped any guys on FDL yet who criticize me for being sexist. But that won’t keep me from trying.
Why does Pete hate SSI so much? Why does he even care? The man is so fucking rich, what possible reason does he have to hurt millions of people?
ere are quite a few of us, but we don’t get paid by Peter Peterson or his foundation.
What always cracks me up is the suggestion that the left is funded by George Soros. THEY are the ones with their right wing billionaire funders dumping money into think tanks.
I’d like to ask some think tankers.” So how much revenue did you generate for your company this year?”
Answer: Zero.
Oh, maybe they sold a few books and held a few conferences but they LOSE money every single year. They have to go and beg for money from the “producers” so that they can keep their phoneybalony jobs.
I was just lamenting this today as I thought of how many real liberals would LOVE to have wing nut welfare. Yes. I’m envious.
The think tanks deliver their ROI to the businesses in the form of ideas that will serve to keep the rich rich, taxes down and regulation absence.
If we had a liberal think tank would the rich fund it? Why would they? We might make their taxes higher, and require more regulation. Of course the really enlightened ones actually do understand they don’t pay enough in taxes (Buffett) and that regulation is good for business. But it’s hard for them to explain that to their buddies at the club.
The rich are running out of free markets to tap. SSI is a ripe plum for the plucking. Get that money to Wall Street Pronto.
Peterson is an asshole, first and foremost.
That crowd don’t want to rock the boat and hardly even want to turn hard to port. They are just on the cruise and not willing to join the revolution. A
And if you are not willing to join, start or encourage revolution, you are firmly entrenched in preserving the status quo with at best some little hair cuts every now and again to make it look a bit more presentable.
If you can’t lend a hand get out of the way for the times they are a changin.
That’s right Spocko, the NAF finds you unworthy.
Unlike, for example McMegan
You want that sweet funding, you’re gonna need kneepads.
Question to those who are more plugged into Beltway reading habits than am I:
Does anyone in D.C. still read the Washington Post?
I haven’t bothered with it for a couple of years, and that may be giving me a distorted perception of how relevant it is to the discussion right now.
Anyone?
Thanks masacchio. It’s good to be able to connect the dots.
Correct: get the hard-earned “small people’s” money to be invested in safe, secure, never-a-problem Wall St, where the small peeps will take all the hits, but Wall St will reap the benefits, including raking a minimum of 5% off the top for the enrichment of the Ponzi schemers (but call it “Admin” fees bc privatization works “so much better” than the gov’t).
Plus: keep the “small people” ever more ground under, which makes them less “energetic” and more beholden to the Morlock, uh, Wall St/banksters/Oligarchs.
P.S. Matt Bai’s a tool. Just wanted to say that.
There is a sprinkling of Dems to make it look non-partisan, but I would venture to guess that almost all, if not all of these people are (still, despite the Great Recession) neoliberals a la Milton Friedman, those who still believe in -qte-free-unqte- markets and -qte-free-unqte- trade, (they are both delusions, there are no such things) and I would guess that a few may still believe that both will benefit mankind through the collective inherent wisdom of the quote market unquote, laughably proven wrong now, but still hung onto by the corporate plutocracy (Petersen is a prime member), because it enriches them multifold and by wanna-bes to the upper class club, and finally by naifs.
Right-on! I’m glad you left that at Bill Maher’s blog. Haven’t seen the show, but I get the picture!
Exactly. He would not meet people like Jane or Gov. Dean since that means discussion based on logic and facts. Too much pesky stuff to handle when it is easier to write fiction stating Democrats or Republicans want this mind you no names just to be safe similar to Iraq WMD claims we already now know of.
We might never see money when we really need i.e. when old. Since all the money is with them and not in common public owned treasury they will one day crash the market as we saw in May 2010, a 1000 point drop in matter of minutes, run with all the speed they can blaming the issue on computer glitches and we will be holding the empty bag. Our regulators will be clueless then as they are now of what really happened.
We have bait and switch experts right now. Even though above solution is the right one regarding removing caps just ask Congress to remain in grid-lock for S.S. not even touch it. We all know what happens if Congress acts and it goes through Senate one senator will take the requisite fall and the fix will be done to gut it in a generation. Once we know we have a better congress and senate present we can request them to improve the system.
SSI is short for Supplemental Security Income, a general-revenue funded program for indigent elderly blind and disabled.
http://www.ssa.gov/ssi/
Although SSI is managed by the Social Security Administration, its not the same program as Social Security retirement benefits (which are paid out of a Social Security trust fund).
I became aware of the New America Foundation a couple of years ago when the media started to cite it on a fairly regular basis. Since it was often represented as a leftish think tank and their pronouncements/recommendations were often anything but leftish, I tried to find out something about it.
Ted Halstead, the founder of New America Foundation, established Redefining Progress, a public policy institute at age 25. I tried to find out how someone establishes a new policy institute at that young age, but there is little info on him available on the net other than the schools he attended (Dartmouth and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government) and the fact that he was decreed a Young Global Leader by the elite in Davos. As I was searching, I came across this video from 2005 on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdWUSzIjKyY
In the first part of the video, Halstead praises McCain, claims that Perot prevented Bush Sr. from getting reelected, states that Nader stole the election from Gore, and at around the 4 minute mark, mentions the Baby Bond idea as an example of how Bush II’s Ownership Society could be restarted after Bush’s efforts at privatizing SS failed. He then goes into a discussion of how a group like NAF can build up a set of ideas that could be implemented should “the wave of history” (i.e., a crisis) allow the acceptance of policies that otherwise would be rejected. As an example of how this might occur, he mentions FDR and the Great Depression.
At about 14 minutes, Halstead (referring to his discussion of his health care proposal that may be in another video that is not on youtube) advocates for mandatory health insurance, wrapping the phrase “shared sacrifice” around the idea of mandates.
At just before 19 minutes, Halstead states that the leaders he likes the most are McCain and Harold Ford. Remember, this was 2005.
All ‘cons’ hinge on the element of trust. ‘Think tank’ sounds objective and scientific and gives the appearance of something real. For me Mr. Bai was using these references as a reaching for ‘authority’ to establish his credentials as more than a yellow-press crooner. His slip up was to refer to the Trust fund bonds as ‘I.O.U.s’, as that is an established Peterson talking point.
Mr. Bai states the obvious – that it will take taxes on the rich to get them to repay the loans they took out from the Social Security Trust Fund so as to get the deficit funding of the Bush tax cut for the rich, or it will take Social Security in effect selling those bonds to others – like China – when it needs the cash. Social Security selling its bonds to China does not increase the national debt (process is bonds to Treasury for cash that Treasury gets by selling bonds to China)
Why Mr. Bai sees this as bad or not doable is the question – but then if he is a spokesperson for the GOP/rich the answer is obvious.
This would make an excellent diary on Seminal. Please consider doing that with the clip.