I've noticed a very dangerous trend on network and cable TV news. Have you noticed that does the Beltway media never puts on an economist who disagrees with their deficit fetish? Do economists have to fill out a form that declares what side of the deficit debate they are on before they get invited to discuss the subject? The only time we get meaningful pushback against the deficit scolds is by Paul Krugman --and he's just one person. And to MSNBC, why does Fix The Debt shill Ed Rendell get much more air time than any economist when it comes to issues regarding America's economy?

I want answers and I want them now.

Bloggers like myself, Digby and Duncan (just to name a few) constantly write about this topic. That's how terms like "deficit scolds" came to be. The Beltway has always been infected by a swamp fever meme disease on any given political meme. Recently the fever came out over the fiscal cliff and under Bush, it was the Iraq War. Greg Sargent calls it the Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop. You can fill replace the second word of this title with any other topic and it will fit nicely into the equation.

That’s true, but it’s worth reflecting onwhy Scarborough believes Krugman’s views are so marginal and isolated. It gets back to what I’ve called the “Beltway Deficit Feedback Loop.” The relentless bipartisan focus on the deficit convinces voters to be worried about it, which in turn leads lawmakers to spend still more time talking about it and less time talking about the economy, a phenomenon that is self-reinforcing.

This is exacerbated by some commentators and news orgs, who continue to treat the deficit scolds with a great deal of deference, while marginalizing the opinion that we should prioritize boosting the economy and job creation as a means of getting the country’s fiscal problems under control over time without savage spending cuts that will hurt a lot of people. Back in 2011one study actually confirmed that newspapers were spending far more time talking about the deficit than the economy — at a time when the recovery was in serious peril.

The Morning Joe crew’s reaction to Krugman perfectly captures this phenomenon. They treated him as a pariah. According to Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski compared Krugman’s “head in the sand” approach to that of climate deniers. You can almost picture Krugman sent on a lonely march through the Village square, head hanging in shame, with “DD” — Deficit Denier — printed on his back in big scarlet letters

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As billionaires go, Pete Peterson is certainly not one of the wingnut billionaires by any stretch. But if our criteria for evaluating philanthropy is wingnuttery, we're surely lost in a vortex of our own making. Start with this: Peter G. Peterson was a Republican, just like his pal Mike Bloomberg. Not just any Republican, either. A Republican who served under Richard Nixon. And now he is a deficit hawk, which means his efforts support the right wing effort to undermine social insurance while lifting up corporate interests.

Take the latest Peterson PR campaign, Fix the Debt. The Institute for Policy Studies released a report last month about the billionaire CEO coalition standing behind the effort, showing it to be a Trojan Horse created to serve corporate interests. Among their findings:

• The 63 Fix the Debt companies that are publicly held stand to gain as much as $134 billion in windfalls if Congress approves one of their main proposals — a “territorial tax system.” Under this system, companies would not have to pay U.S. federal income taxes on foreign earnings when they bring the profits back to the United States.
• The CEOs backing Fix the Debt personally received a combined total of $41 million in savings last year thanks to the Bush-era tax cuts. The top CEO beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts in 2011, Leon Black of Apollo Global Management, saved $9.9 million on the Bush tax cuts. The private equity fund leader reaped $215 million in taxable income last year just from vested stock.
• Of the 63 Fix the Debt CEOs at publicly held firms, 24 received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal corporate income taxes. All but six of these firms reported U.S. profits last year.

So you see, the "Fix the Debt" effort isn't quite as non/bi-partisan as you might think, nor is it intended to serve progressive interests. But wait, there's more:

The hypocrisy was stunning. We documented, for example, how many of the campaign’s leaders had contributed massively to the national debt through tax-dodging tricks. Twenty-four of them had even paid their CEOs more in 2011 than their firms paid in corporate income taxes. We also calculated that the average Fix the Debt CEO calling for cuts to Social Security themselves had pension assets of $12 million, enough to garner a $65,000 monthly retirement check starting at age 65.

So this is the group who is calling for Social Security checks to be reduced and Medicare eligibility age to be moved up to age 67. A group of people who think our national debt is so serious, so utterly doom-ridden, they're fearmongering even while they set up their fat pensions and healthcare plans for themselves.

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Just after the disastrous midterms in 2010, I wrote a lengthy post about who Pete Peterson was, and why he is exactly the wrong guy to be having a "bipartisan summit" on so-called "entitlement reform." Here's a snippet from back then:

The Peter G. Peterson foundation claims to be bipartisan, yet their former CEO is out pimping a book, a new advocacy group and a position. Peter G. Peterson served as Secretary of Commerceunder Richard Nixon. He claims to be very, very, very concerned about our deficit, yet not one word is uttered in this report about Wall Street's contribution to the deficit, the collapse of our economy, or any responsibility on the part of the financial industry to help reduce the deficit they helped create.

Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post has updated that information with some more current relevant facts and data:

According to a review of tax documents from 2007 through 2011, Peterson has personally contributed at least $458 million to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to cast Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government spending as in a state of crisis, in desperate need of dramatic cuts. Peterson's millions have done next to nothing to change public opinion: In survey after survey, Americans reject the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare. A recent national tour organized by AmericaSpeaks and largely funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation was met by audiences who rebuffed his proposals.

But Peterson has been able to drive a major shift in elite consensus about government spending, with talk of "grand bargains" that would slash entitlements, cut corporate tax rates and end personal tax breaks, such as the mortgage deduction, that benefit the middle class.

Peterson's deficit hawkery drives the narrative away from fairness right into the arms of willing Republicans. So this week, he held a "summit" of Washington elites to pearl-clutch over the deficit and debt in order to bolster their case. We can thank Bill Clinton for contributing to that narrative, too, since he was one of the featured speakers. The entire interview is at the end of this post.

Thanks to Peter Peterson, we have a country full of people who actually believe the national debt is the single biggest issue this country faces, and because he's put a "bipartisan" face on the dialogue, he gives the appearance that Democrats and Republicans alike should abandon Social Security and Medicare because they are, in his opinion, the primary drivers of the deficit. Worse yet, he's pimping those ideas to kids in order to drive a wedge between generations in the hope of succeeding at eroding these fundamental safety nets.

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I'm not sure hedge fund managers and investment bankers are really the right group to be determining our fiscal future. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're not. But Peter G. Peterson is a very serious man on a very serious mission, and that mission includes a film, a book, a couple of foundations, and a billion-dollar effort to re-educate Americans on very serious matters, like Social Security, and Medicare, and anything that really has a deep impact on the poor and middle classes in this country. Peterson is so committed to this mission that he started his foundation with a $1-billion dollar grant and has branched out from there.

The Peter G. Peterson foundation claims to be bipartisan, yet their former CEO is out pimping a book, a new advocacy group and a position. Peter G. Peterson served as Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon. He claims to be very, very, very concerned about our deficit, yet not one word is uttered in this report about Wall Street's contribution to the deficit, the collapse of our economy, or any responsibility on the part of the financial industry to help reduce the deficit they helped create.

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