Peterson Foundation Makes Grants to Stimulate Deficit-Reduction Ideas

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation will make grants totaling $1.2-million to six think tanks to come up with long-term plans to cut the country’s budget deficit, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The American Enterprise Institute, Bipartisan Policy Center, Center for American Progress, Economic Policy Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Roosevelt Institute Campus Network will get $200,000 each to develop proposals to be unveiled at a fiscal summit to be hosted by the Peterson Foundation later this year.

Mr. Peterson, a businessman who served as Commerce Secretary under President Nixon, said the plans should run through at least 2035 “focus on specific ideas and proposals.” He said “very ideological groups” were chosen in order “to get them to be specific about how they cling to their ideologies and how they attain their objective” of cutting the deficit.

From the archives: Read The Chronicle’s profile of Mr. Peterson’s philanthropy.