MOYERS - Interview w/ Peter Peterson, Fed. Reserve Bank of NY

[Dover]

NOW with Bill Moyers #236
Friday, September 26, 2003 at 9PM on PBS
(Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html)

=============================================================
This week on NOW:

* Faith-based groups are helping the needy, but are they also using your tax dollars to promote their religion? Go inside the debate in GOD AND GOVERNMENT.
* The U.S. and Pakistan have become strange bedfellows because of the war on terror. French philosopher and expert on Pakistan Bernard-Henri Levy with an inside view of this controversial ally.
* Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY Peter Peterson on where the economy is really going and the perils of an out-of-control deficit.
* A NOW essay.

=============================================================
GOD AND GOVERNMENT

Around the nation faith-based organizations are getting taxpayer money to help Americans in trouble. Supporters point out that these groups have been successful in housing the homeless, educating children and caring for AIDS patients, the elderly, and the disabled - often stepping in to help do a job that they say government social service agencies can't do alone. But critics contend that some of these faith-based programs are not only trying to help people with social services, but are also a vehicle to push religion on their vulnerable clients. NOW goes inside the faith-based initiatives debate with a look at Faith Partners, a Colorado church-based group that aims to help welfare families become self-sufficient. NOW follows the experience of a single mother struggling to care for her children and examines whether Faith Partners' social objectives can be separated from its religious mission.

=============================================================
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

On Wednesday, President Bush meets with President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, who the administration has called one of our closest allies in the war on terror. As Congress considers an $87 billion budget for reconstruction in Iraq - a package that will include aid to Pakistan - many wonder how much help Pakistan will be to US efforts in the Middle East. NOW's David Brancaccio talks to Bernard-Henri Levy, the esteemed French philosopher and accomplished author, who spent a great deal of time in Pakistan to research his most recent book, "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" Levy will give us the insider's view on our controversial ally and also talk about US-France relations today.

=============================================================
PETER PETERSON

Bill Moyers interviews Peter G. Peterson, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, former secretary of commerce under President Nixon, and chairman and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, an international investing and advisory firm. As a Republican, Mr. Peterson has been critical of the current administration for what he calls "a Republican leadership in complete control of our national government, is advocating a huge and virtually endless policy of debt creation." Peterson has been one of the strongest advocates of corporate reform within the business community, and talks to Moyers about the economy, the deficit, and the need for a more responsible fiscal policy.

=============================================================
NOW WITH BILL MOYERS continues online at PBS.org (www.pbs.org/now). Log on to the site for a freedom of religion quiz; for a history of separation of church and state, and the faith -based initiative program; for a timeline of Pakistan/U.S. relations; for a map of how states are dealing with deficits; for resources to track the cost of the war and the deficit; and more.

=============================================================