Portal:Fix the Debt/Astroturf Partners

Pete Peterson has given at least $5 million to Fix the Debt, according to the Washington Post. Fix the Debt is listed as a project of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) on CRFB's website. Peterson has long funded CRFB and served on its board. CRFB is itself a project of the New America Foundation (NAF). In the 1990s, CRFB partnered with tobacco firms, anxious to avoid higher excise taxes on cigarettes, to tank the Clinton health care plan. Today, critics claim CRFB is a "Trojan Horse" for a similar agenda to cut taxes for wealthy corporations who want to create a territorial tax system.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation funds at least six of the "partner" organizations listed on Fix the Debt's website:


 * Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget/New America Foundation: $2,050,000,
 * The Moment of Truth Project: $300,000 (another project of CRFB),
 * Comeback America Initiative: $3,100,000,
 * Committee for Economic Development: $1,853,616, and
 * Concord Coalition: $6,036,060 (including $1,500,000 in matching funds).

With regard to Fix the Debt and its many partner organizations, the National Journal observed: "Singlehandedly, Peterson has created a loose network of deficit hawk organizations that seem independent but that all spout the Peterson-sanctioned message of a 'grand bargain.'"