First it was Rhode Island. Then the hallowed halls of Congress and soon Iowa.
But the next stop for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s tour de force for progressive justice will be right into the belly of the beast. This weekend he’ll be in Sea Island, Georgia participating in the annual “World Forum” organized by the American Enterprise Institute.
AEI is, according to Right Wing Watch, “one of the oldest and most influential of the pro-business right-wing think tanks. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism, and has been extremely successful in placing its people in influential governmental positions, particularly in the Bush Administration. AEI has been described as one of the country’s main bastions of neoconservatism.”
Said Whitehouse about his decision to participate, “I expect my views on these issues will differ greatly with those of the leaders at AEI, but I look forward to a forthright discussion. Fair and efficient markets have always been the engine of broadly shared opportunity and prosperity in America. This is especially true for our health care and energy markets, where the stakes could not be higher.”
Whitehouse will participate on two panel discussions: on one he’ll talk about “the promise of health care delivery system reform,” according to his office, and on the other he will discuss “the market distortions created by the economy-wide costs of carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels.”