Financier Pledges $1-Billion to Newly Created Foundation

Peter G. Peterson, the private-equity titan, has announced that he 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 secretary of commerce during the Nixon administration, said the money will come from the nearly $1.9-billion he made in June from Blackstone’s initial public offering.

Mr. Peterson, who is 81, said his foundation will focus primarily on problems 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 understanding of those problems and encourage the public’s will to combat them.

“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,” said Mr. Peterson. “I just don’t think they know enough about these problems.”

Curbing Nuclear Weapons

The foundation will also work toward making the country’s educational system more competitive, and quashing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The fund will be headed by David M. Walker, who as comptroller general of the United States currently leads the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Mr. Peterson, who says he already provided $125-million of the $1-billion pledge to the foundation, has also announced his first two grant recipients. An as-yet-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 Heritage Foundation will conduct throughout the country. 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 group’s efforts to stop nuclear proliferation; Mr. Buffett is also contributing $5-million to the group.