A few more and final comments…
Selise, appreciate your comments. I definitely know what Jamie and Randall say and I simply disagree with them. There’s plenty of progressive economists who also disagree with them, and some who don’t.

I make no claim that the Peterson Summit is a balanced event. i do claim that neither my particpation last year, nor my research directors’ particpation this year, or our partner, tamara draut from demos, were in any way censored, self-censored, or limited in any way. I would suggest you look at last year’s panel, starting around the 42nd minute:
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Peter-Peterson-Foundation-Event-on-Budget-and-Deficits/17777-1/ and see me challenge the deficit-crisis perspective.

To all FDLers, Feel free to closely monitor our work (which would require you actually read what we’ve done already) and see if anything changes in how we approach budget policy. You won’t find anything indicating our fundamental values and analysis has shifted. Read our budget work and then judge whether you feel we have a progressive analysis. Jan Schakowsky and Andy Stern used it in their dissents/plans on the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, and the Progressive Caucus used our work in developing the People’s Budget (which, to my chagrin, started reducing the deficit in the first year, contrary to our advice).
Larry Mishel

Larry Mishel

Jane,
I never said we never received a dime from a corporation. I, in fact, said we receive 5% or less. Try finding another year where we thank Boeing. And, Pfizer, is a check that Jacob Hacker (your hero of the public option, I would assume and hope) signed over to us. Both were small amounts of money.
It is ridiculous for EPI to be attacked as sucking up to the Democrat establishment for fear of our losing funding. We’ve pulled no punches. Should I accept no funding from unions because they tend to favor Democrats?

I’m not sure what the larger point is. But we suffer in funding because of the positions we take and don’t benefit from them. We were not favored in the Democracy Alliance because we support unions and don’t salute free trade. No money, so be it.

I don’t agree completely with Jamie Galbraith’s and R Wray’s position on deficits (i.e., they never matter)but I/we do agree with them and say everywhere that this is not the time to lower the deficit. I said that on the panel at the Peterson Foundation summit last year–go look at the video. I said there was no impending crisis because of the deficit and said that we actually did have a major crisis–the jobs crisis–that we should be talking about. Alice Rivlin belittled me. I can take it.

Sorry, I don’t feel like EPI should be assailed falsely by people that call themselves progressives.
Larry

Yves,
You don’t say much about EPI so I’ll just respond to your one claim, that somehow “But they depend on Democratic party infrastructure for much of their fundraising.”

I’m not sure where you get your information or what you think you know. As the person who knows where every dollar for EPI has come from for two decades I’m mystified, because I don’t recall getting any help from the Democratic Party infrastructure. Was that what we were after when we fought NAFTA or the China deal in the late 90s, when we’ve criticized Obama and Clinton.
In fact, EPI has a minuscule base of ‘major donors’, the rich people who support the Dems. Similar with CBPP. We don’t get corporate support (check out the info on our website), so what the F are you talking about? I feel like I’m in the fact-free zone of a debate with the wingnuts. If you really want to know the facts, get in touch with me.

As for Randall Wray…..one can readily compare the budget plan EPI released last November and the one released as part of the Peterson Summit. They’re nearly identical, with the latter more specific. We urge higher deficits in the short run, we deny there’s an immediate ‘deficit crisis’. In fact, you can see me saying that in last year’s summit where I had to debate Rivlin and Ryan and others. I thought the first summit was quite unbalanced, but the recent one was better (though not what I would have presented, for sure).
Larry