John Williamson, a Peterson Institute “senior fellow” coined the term “the Washington Consensus” at a conference in 1989.
Williamson joined the Institute in 1981 when it was founded. Pete Peterson is the Republican billionaire from Wall Street who has dedicated his life to proselytizing for lower taxes on the wealthy, stringent spending cuts in social programs, and privatizing Social Security – the unholy grail of Wall Street that would provide our largest banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional investment fees. Peterson has funded many groups to evangelize for these neo-liberal dogmas.
