February 15, 2008
Financier Pledges $1-Billion to Foundation; Main Goal Is to Promote Economic Security
By Maria Di Mento
Peter G. Peterson, the private-equity titan, has announced plans to give at least $1-billion over the next several years through his newly created foundation, which will focus on calling public attention to threats to America’s economic security.
Mr. Peterson, a co-founder and the senior chairman of the Blackstone Group, in New York, and a former Secretary of Commerce during the Nixon administration, said the money will come from the nearly $1.9-billion he made in June during Blackstone’s initial public offering.
Mr. Peterson, who is 81, said his foundation will focus primarily on problems he says the country is facing because of the growth of federal entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security; ballooning health-care costs; the increase in budget and trade deficits, low savings rates, and soaring foreign debt, all of which, Mr. Peterson said, Americans can no longer ignore. He said his foundation will work to increase the public’s understanding of those problems and will work to encourage the public’s will to combat such troubles.
“I’m no sociologist, but I do know what we’re doing and what we’re not doing,” Mr. Peterson said when asked about what he thought was behind the nation’s problems. “We’re consuming much too much, we’re saving much too little, and we’re expecting much too much.”
Still, he said, he has faith that his foundation’s efforts can encourage people to rally around efforts to change how Americans operate.
“I don’t believe that American parents and grandparents are suddenly callous and indifferent to their children’s future, I just don’t think they know enough about these problems,” said Mr. Peterson.
The foundation will also work toward making the country’s educational system more competitive and quashing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The organization will be headed by David M. Walker, who currently leads the U.S. Government Accountability Office as the comptroller general of the United States.
Mr. Peterson, who says he already provided $125-million of the $1-billion pledge to the foundation, also announced his first two grant recipients: a still-undecided amount will go to the Concord Coalition for the group’s Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, a series of talks that the coalition, Mr. Walker, the Brookings Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute will conduct throughout the county. Mr. Peterson co-founded the Concord Coalition in 1992 to push for fiscally responsible public policy.
The second grant is going to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, toward which Mr. Peterson’s foundation is contributing $5-million. Mr. Peterson said he is joining with Warren E. Buffett to support the anti-nuclear proliferation group; Mr. Buffett is also contributing $5-million to the anti-nuclear group.
To see how Mr. Peterson’s pledge compares with other big gifts, go to The Chronicle’s searchable database of big gifts and its ranking of the nation’s most-generous donors.
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