In the early 2000s (decade), he founded the Virginia chapter of Club for Growth and directed the International Center for Law and Economics.[14][15]
As a writer, Ferrara's employers included erstwhile lobbyist and convicted felon, Jack Abramoff, who hired Ferrara to write op-ed pieces favorable to Abramoff clients. Ferrara doesn't disclose which pieces he is paid to write, but according to a Business Week article, the specific pieces may have been articles in The Washington Times about the Northern Marianas Islands and The Choctaw Indian tribe. Ferrara stated that those writings reflect his independently held views on the respective subjects. "I do that all the time. I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future."[16]
Ferrara was tied to Abramoff again in 2020 in connection with AML Bitcoin after the FBI charged Abramoff with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and violating the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Ferrara wrote op-eds in favor of AML Bitcoin that were placed in The American Spectator, Investor’s Business Daily, and The Washington Times.[17]
Ferrara was a senior policy adviser at the Institute for Policy Innovation.[18] In April 2011, Ferrara became senior fellow for entitlement and budget policy at The Heartland Institute. He served concurrently as general counsel for the American Civil Rights Union and policy director of the Carleson Center for Welfare Reform.[4][19] He was a member of the District of Columbia Bar but is now on inactive status.[20]
In 1987, The New York Times published an op-ed by Ferrara in which he advocated capping the Social Security payroll tax.[25] The newspaper also interviewed Ferrara that year about a proposal by Secretary of Health and Human Services Otis R. Bowen to expand Medicare; Ferrara criticized the program for "a lot of gaps in medical coverage for the elderly" and found "no basis for just expanding Medicare to take over coverage that private sector provides now."[26] The George W. Bush administration championed Ferrara's plan to privatize Social Security.[27]
National Review magazine published his essay "What Is An American?" in its September 25, 2001 issue, after the September 11 attacks.[13] In the essay, he claims that "there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan",[13] although census numbers show Afghanistan has roughly ten to fifteen times as many Muslims as the United States.[28] The essay was reproduced in a chain e-mail claiming that an Australian dentist wrote it.[29] Ferrara, reflecting on that essay in 2007, still stood by it and supported "more selective immigration so that the U.S. gets a 'better-educated class of Mexican immigrants.'"[30]
Ferrara has also written about climate change, asserting that human activity is not the cause of climate change, that "manmade global warming" is political science rather than natural science, and that actual scientific evidence proves the earth is in a cooling cycle.[31][32][33]
^ abFerrara, Peter (May 20, 2003). "The Tax-Cut Critics". National Review. Retrieved July 15, 2011.
^Javers, Eamon (December 16, 2005). "Op-Eds for Sale". Business Week. Archived from the original on December 18, 2005. Retrieved July 14, 2009. ...he doesn't see a conflict of interest in taking undisclosed money to write op-ed pieces because his columns never violated his ideological principles.
^Birnbaum, Jeffrey H. (February 22, 2005). "Private-Account Concept Grew From Obscure Roots". The Washington Post. p. A1. Retrieved May 7, 2006. Twenty-five years ago, Peter J. Ferrara was a Harvard Law School student with what he called "the craziest idea in the world." In a paper he wrote before graduating, he suggested converting the government-run Social Security program into a web of private investments...the proposal by the 24-year-old Ferrara began an improbable journey from the fringes of public policy into the mainstream. Ferrara graduated from the law school in 1979, according to his ACRU biographyArchived 2011-10-03 at the Wayback Machine
^"Muslim Population by Country". The Future of the Global Muslim Population. Pew Research Center. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
^Ferrara, Peter (January 22, 2013). In this, he asserted "global temperatures will continue to decline for another two decades or more"; in fact, temperatures resumed rising within a decade to new record levels.
"As The Economy Recesses, Obama's Global Warming Delusions Are Truly Cruel"Forbes, Retrieved November 26, 2014.