Peterson Foundation Targets 'Free-Lunch' Mentality
$1B effort aims to "make sure tough choices are made sooner rather than later."
June 25, 2008— -- The nation's free-lunch mentality is the target of a $1 billion nonpartisan foundation launching July 10 in New York City. The organization, which will be led by former U.S. Comptroller General Dave Walker, is bankrolled by Pete Peterson, commerce secretary under former President Nixon and co-founder of the Blackstone Group.
"We've become a free-lunch society where everybody got used to having everything that they wanted, whenever they wanted it, without having to worry about how it was ultimately going to be paid for," said Walker, who serves as the foundation's president and chief executive officer. "We are trying to create various issue campaigns which will ... make sure that tough choices are made sooner rather than later."
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation plans to focus on six issues: financial deficits, entitlements, health care costs, education, energy consumption and nuclear proliferation.
Much of the work of the foundation, which is expected to have a staff of fewer than 30 in New York, will be done through the awarding of grants. Starting after Labor Day, the foundation plans to issue analyses of the presidential candidates' policy proposals.
Appearing Tuesday before the House Budget Committee, Walker unveiled "The State of the Union's Finances," the group's take on the country's fiscal outlook. He also called for ways to make the country's long-term financial obligations more transparent.
When it comes to the country's fiscal health, Walker, who served under both former President Bill Clinton and President Bush, wants the public to know that the problem is not simply today's deficit and debt levels.
"The problem," Walker told ABC News, "is our off-balance obligations for Social Security and Medicare, which are over $40 trillion and growing by at least $2 trillion a year by not doing anything."
To fix Social Security and Medicare, the Peterson Foundation will push for scaling back benefits for middle- and upper-income workers. The group's ideas for reforming Social Security also include raising the retirement age and strengthening the benefit for those near poverty.
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