The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem." Through this special report -- and in partnership withmagazine -- the Center for Media and Democracy exposes the funding, the leaders, the partner groups, and phony state "chapters" of this astroturf supergroup," whose goal is to achieve a grand bargain on austerity by July 4, 2013.

"Grand Bargain" Means Cuts to Social Security and Medicare

Fix the Debt’s Last Harrumph The Campaign to Fix the Debt – billionaire Pete Peterson ’s Wall Street-backed austerity front group – is scaling down and shedding staff after failing to achieve any of their toxic goals. Their fake youth group, “The Can Kicks Back,” is in debt and about to kick the bucket. They are packing up their phony “can man” and their Mercedes BMW tour mobile (bizarrely called the AmeriVAN) and putting Simpson-Bowles in mothballs. Read our piece on how astroturf got mowed by real people. Since our February 2013 front page expose on this “astroturf supergroup” in the Nation, you helped us spread the word and call out the tax dodging hypocrites with platinum plated pensions pushing harmful budget cuts. Fix the Debt failed because Americans aren’t interested in cutting Social Security or Medicare to offset more tax handouts to big corporations. Now we learn that President Obama has struck “chained CPI” Social Security cuts from his budget proposal. It is time to take advantage of this important victory to pivot to a discussion on how to improve and strengthen these lifesaving programs to preserve them for future generations. Help us continue to be an independent voice in the budget battles.

Please consider a generous donation today. Dear WWII Vets, Forget About the Monument, They Are Gunning for Your Social Security! Iowa veterans at WWII memorial

(Photo by Leo Shane III. Used with permission.

© 2013 Stars and Stripes.) Apparently the only thing both Democrats and Republicans can agree on in Washington, D.C. is that they can't deal with bad press involving Honor Flight vets. This led to absurd images of Republicans -- who had shut down the federal government, including all monuments and museums -- rushing to "aid" veterans shut out by monument closures. In the most revolting display, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-CA) publicly berated a National Park Service Ranger for a situation created entirely by Congress. As the government shutdown marches on and the dangerously real deadline of the federal debt limit approaches, it is increasingly clear that the fight over "Obamacare" is merely an opening salvo. The real goal of the hostage takers is a "Grand Bargain" on the budget that would include cuts to Social Security and Medicare. This has been the long-term agenda for debt crisis-monger Pete Peterson and government haters David and Charles Koch for many decades. But now, after massively gerrymandering the electoral landscape in 2010, these manufactured crisis kings and backstage billionaires hold all the cards. Rev up those engines. It's time for the Honor Vets to head back to Washington to save us all. Read the full article on PRWatch here. New Heights of Hypocrisy in Latest "Fix the Debt" Ad Simpson-Bowles Launch National

Ad Campaign to Fix the Debt Today, the group launched a six figure TV ad buy that reaches new heights of hypocrisy -- and that is saying a lot. Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson and Morgan Stanley board member Erskine Bowles have long been spokespersons for Fix the Debt. The "folksy" Simpson: "For cryin' out loud, Erskine, who isn't fed up with what's goin' on in Washington?" The Bowles tsk tsk: “These politicians are playing games jerking our country around from crisis to crisis.” This is rich from a group that has been hyping a debt and deficit crisis since its launch in July 2012, even though the deficit has been cut in half in recent years. In January 2013 Fix the Debt steering committee member and former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen admitted that Fix the Debt's strategy was to create an "artificial crisis" to achieve a "grand bargain" on Medicare and Social Security. Moreover, Fix the Debt was started with a $5 million donation from crisis king Pete Peterson. Peterson has been warning that our Social Security would create a “Pearl Harbor” type crisis for decades as my colleague Lisa Graves documented in her Nation piece “Long History of Deficit Scaremongering.” Read the full article on PRWatch here.

Wall Street Billionaire Pete Peterson

AFL-CIO Says It Will "Fight to the Death" to Stop Cuts and Will Give "No Cover" to Democrats

Damon Silvers on CNBC “The labor movement is going to fight to the death to stop cuts to Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid,” AFL-CIO policy director Damon Silvers told Salon Thursday afternoon. “Not ‘unreasonable cuts.’ Not ‘cuts without tax increases.’ Cuts period. We’re against all of them, we will fight them ferociously, and we will give no cover to any Democrat who supports them.” Silvers said it would be “simply an invitation to a fratricide in the Democratic Party” for the president to take up a renewed push for “chained CPI,” a proposed change in cost of living calculations that would reduce future Social Security benefits. “It hits the absolute most vulnerable people …” charged Silvers. “It’s a proposal that has no merit at all other than that billionaires like it.” He also called out billionaire Pete Peterson, who funds several groups advocating for cuts. “They’ve got the vampire agenda: No matter what happens, no matter how many bullets you fire at it, these guys keep coming back with all their money and demanding that we cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid …” said Silvers. “We’re gonna fight that stuff with everything we’ve got, and we’re gonna win, because the public’s with us.” The deal struck by Congress to avoid a debt default sets up a series of deadlines for a new budget deal and many believe that Social Security and Medicare are in danger. The usually mild mannered Policy Director of the nation's largest union federation sounded the alarm in the strongest terms. Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO warned Democrats in a Salon interview that "chained CPI" as was proposed in President Obama's budget, would be "fratricide for the Democratic Party." The following is excerpted from a Salon article

Fix The Debt Hypocrites Want to Exempt Off-Shore Earnings From U.S. Taxation

Pete Peterson Linked Economists Caught in Austerity Error

Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart A team of economists at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at UMass Amherst broke a huge story this week that was promptly picked up by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, and newspapers around the globe. The economists proved that the essential underpinning "of the intellectual edifice of austerity economics," as Paul Krugman put it, is based on sloppy methodology and spreadsheet coding errors. Three years ago, Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff released a study that presented empirical evidence from 44 nations over a 200 year time span to demonstrate that countries with a public debt over 90 percent of GDP (the United States is at about 100 percent, Japan at 200 percent) have average growth rates one percent lower than other nations. Forty-four countries, 200 years, Harvard -- pretty convincing, huh? Except it was wrong. It will come as no surprise that Reinhart and Rogoff have ties to Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, a big fan of their work. Peterson has been advocating cuts to Social Security and Medicare for decades in order to prevent a debt crisis he warns will spike interest rates and collapse the economy. (Peterson failed to warn of the actual crisis building on Wall Street during his time at the Blackstone Group.) Read the whole article from PRWatch here.

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