Panama Papers: Think Tankers Working to Safeguard Tax Havens

A group deeply connected to conservative and libertarian think tanks has been working to safeguard tax havens around the world, according to recently obtained "Panama Papers" that the Washington Post has received.  Here is more:

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity promised to persuade Congress, members of the George W. Bush administration and key policymakers to protect the players of the offshore world, where hundreds of thousands of shell companies had been created, often to hide money and evade taxes.

To reach out to American officials and fund its U.S. operations, the center said it needed an infusion of cash for an eight-month campaign: at least $247,000.  “We hope you can support this effort with a donation,” the center wrote in a document sent to Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the heart of an international financial scandal known as the Panama Papers.

Led by two U.S. citizens — one an economist, the other a tax expert for a Republican congressman — the center met again and again with government officials and members of the offshore industry around the world, while issuing hundreds of funding pleas and peddling its connections to Washington’s power brokers.

The directors of the center, Mitchell and Andrew F. Quinlan, two longtime anti-tax advocates, declined to reveal the identities of their donors, which they said is a common practice in the nonprofit world.

The man at the helm of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Andrew Quinlan, 53, is a former Republican congressional staffer who worked out of his home in Alexandria and spends much of his time on the road. Dan Mitchell, 57, is a widely known economist who worked for the Bush/Quayle transition team in 1988 and a leading tax expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington think tank. The two met in 1981 while undergrads and fraternity brothers at the University of Georgia.

Quinlan and Mitchell launched the center in October 2000. It is made up of two parts, the center itself, which is set up as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization “created to lobby lawmakers in favor of market liberalization,” according to the group’s marketing materials. The second part is called the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization set up to educate the public, lawmakers and the media on “the benefits of limited government” and “the need for competitive markets.”

Quinlan is listed in the center’s tax filings as president, Mitchell as its chairman. Two other board members are named — economist Veronique de Rugy, a co-founder of the center, and a man who died in 2014, John Blundell. Only Quinlan is listed as drawing a salary. His compensation has ranged from $122,000 to $23,000 in 2014, the last year of publicly available tax filings.

The article goes on to note that the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CF&P) Foundation  received $119,000 out of funds raised by a financial services company in Virginia.  That firm was founded by Richard W. Rahn, a former Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank where co-founder Daniel Mitchell works as a Senior Fellow.

CF&P Board Member Veronique de Rugy is a Senior Research Fellow at the libertarian Mercatus Center housed within George Mason University.  She used to be a Resident Fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  The other Board Member listed in tax documents, the late John Blundell, was Director General and Ralph Harris Fellow at the London-based think tank Institute of Economic Affairs.

Think Tank Quickies (#201)

• Will some of Mark Zuckerberg's billions in donations go to think tanks? 
• Kevin Allen starts #CloudMinds, a traveling think tank.
• AEI to participate in January presidential forum.
• Picture: Is this what all think tanks look like?
• The sweet gig of being a bureaucrat, by Mac Zimmerman of AFP, quoting Cato & CEI studies.
• Hillary Clinton does Brookings AGAIN (with Saban Forum 2015).
• Zaid Jilani: "Only good food" in DC is free food you get at think tank events.
• Hotel Zed in Victoria, BC launches think tank space.
• Simon Marks: Virtually all DC think tanks need to address issues with in-house audio systems.
• What do academic think tanks offer to young researchers?
• Rohinton Medhora and John Boer: The rise and influence of foreign policy think tanks.
• Russia Insider: Think tanks heavily influence US decision-making policy.
• On Think Tanks: How think tanks can attract and retain talent.
• Brookings experts in Esquire.
• Think tanks helping get property back?
• Chatham House: Reduce meat consumption or we will all burn.
• Trailor for A Very Heavy Agenda: Role of neocon think tanks (video).
• US Chamber: "In a city full of think tanks we are a 'do' tank."
• Third Way "exposed."

Think Tank Quickies (#197)

• New book on Asian think tanks by Erin Zimmerman.
• A master's in international relations can lead to the prestigious but fiercely competitive career in international think tanks.
• Panel launched by CIGI and Chatham House urge new social compact on Internet privacy.
• Military science fiction from Atlantic Council's Art of Future Warfare project. 
• Rethinking T20: Think tanks, ideas and innovation in foreign policy, via Juan Luis Manfredi.
• Lee Fang story: SEC nominee to oversee Wall Street (Hester Maria Peirce) works at think tank dedicated to blocking regulation (Mercatus Center).
• Netanyahu escapes CAP event without any fireworks, via FP's John Hudson.
• Cato on Instagram: A behind-the-scenes look at life in a libertarian think tank.
• Rethinking Russia launches new research project to map think tanks that study Russia.
• Yahoo News report on new CFR Task Force report "eliminates reference" to every single woman involved.
• Third Way takes home two pumpkin carving trophies (h/t David Slavick).

Obama's Iran Victory Through Group That Funds Think Tanks

President Obama's victory in Congress over the nuclear deal with Iran came from a variety of sources, including one little-known action group that funds a variety of think tanks.  Here is more from The Wall Street Journal:

Early in its campaign, the White House partnered with a range of liberal action groups, veterans organizations and Christian affiliates to bolster its efforts to pressure Congress. A key player was the San Francisco-based Ploughshares Fund, according to U.S. officials. Ploughshares has spent more than $7 million in the past four years funding think tanks, media organizations and activist groups focused on championing diplomacy with Iran.

A week before the deal was reached, Ploughshares organized for the White House a conference call for around 100 activist groups to strategize how to promote the Iran deal. Two members of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement took part.

Here are the funding priorities of Ploughshares Fund.  The group has noted that it funds think tanks such as Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), as well as Cato Institute, Center for American Progress (CAP), Atlantic Council, New America Foundation (NAF), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and EastWest Institute.

Think Tank Quickies (#191)

• China's rise alarming US think tanks.
• Search think funding around the world (including US) at Foundation Maps, via Foundation Center.
• Prominent healthcare economist Deborah Freund joins RAND. 
• Spencer Ackerman: "Just once I want a DC think tank report to say plainly, 'This research is not designed to be true.  It is designed to be useful.'"
• Indian think tanks in the military field.
• Brookings: Is al-Bahgdadi the new bin Laden?
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) does libertarian Cato on Sept. 16.
• State Dept. and White House interact regularly with think tanks; intel community not so much. 
• "Higher education providers" like think tanks are booming.
• Partisan think tanks/researchers prone to produce results that confirm their own political leanings.

Exxon Has Spent $30+ Million on Think Tanks?

Corporations are the glue that keep most large think tanks intact, as a whole spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year for think tank studies and access to scholars.  One specific example is ExxonMobil Corporation, which has reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars on think tanks over the past few decades.  Here is more from a Herald & Tribune op-ed:

...for decades thereafter, the company [Exxon] nevertheless spent $30 million on think tanks and researchers...

According to The Huffington Post, in 2014 alone Exxon spent $1.9 million on 15 think tanks, advocacy groups, and trade associations.  Here is a list from around 2005 of the various think tanks that Exxon was funding.  Think tanks on that list include Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Hoover Institution, and Hudson Institute.

Exxon's corporate website does not list the think tanks it currently funds but says that it "provides support to a variety of think tanks, trade associations and coalitions in order to promote informed dialogue and sound policy on matters pertinent to its interests."  Today, Exxon funds think tanks such as the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and the Brookings Institution.  [Chevron is also a donor to those two think tanks.]

Other think tanks that have received Exxon money include: Resources for the Future (RFF), New America Foundation (NAF), and Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

In 2007, it was reported that Exxon had been funding the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  At that time, AEI was sending letters to scientists offering them up to $10,000 to critique findings in a climate report from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It is also important to remember that in 2009, Exxon head Rex Tillerson came to the Wilson Center in Washington, DC to announce for the first time that Exxon was supporting a carbon tax.

Here is more about big oil companies' funding of think tanks.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on the Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) connection to Exxon.

Exxon has also given large amounts to colleges and universities, often considered the largest competitors to think tanks.

In related news, a recent New York Times piece entitled "Emails Reveal Academic Ties In a Food War" outlines the large sums of money that Monsato has given to academics.  That piece does not mention Monsanto's funding of think tanks, but it is public knowledge that Monsato has donated to think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Hudson Institute.

Heritage Scores $2.7 Million Gift for Family/Marriage Promotion

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has just received a $2.7 million gift from Ms. Betty A. Anderlink.  Here is more from Heritage:

Betty A. Anderlik of Clearwater, Fl. has made a $2.7 million gift to The Heritage Foundation, the prominent Washington, D.C., think tank announced today.

The gift is being made to support Heritage's efforts to design and promote public policies that "place marriage and the family at the center of civil society," as Heritage describes its efforts, and increase opportunity for all Americans. 

In recognition of her support, a fellowship will be established at Heritage in honor of Mrs. Anderlik and her late husband. The title of Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow will go to the Vice President of Heritage’s Institute for Family, Opportunity and Culture. As the current Vice President of the Institute, Jennifer A. Marshall works to promote and defend a vibrant civil society with both a national and international audience. The Institute for Family, Opportunity and Culture performs both independent and integrated analysis in order to promote a stronger civil society.

David Callahan of Inside Philanthropy has just written a piece in response to the gift, entitled "Who Gives to Conservative Think Tanks?"  Mr. Callahan says that American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Cato Institute draw lots of support from the finance community, including many New Yorkers, but Heritage is "definitely a think tank of traditional heartland conservatives."

Mr. Callahan notes that the Heritage gift is meant to honor Mrs. Anderlik's late husband Joseph Anderlink, who was a successful executive at a civil engineering firm.  [More specifically, he was a vice president of engineering at Bonestroo Rosene Anderlik and Associates.]  In 2010 Mrs. Anderlik gave the same amount ($2.7 million) to Iowa State University to create an endowed engineering professorship.

While $2.7 million is a large amount, it is small change compared to a couple of previous gifts that Heritage Foundation has recently received.  Earlier this year the think tank received an "eight-digit" gift from a retired radiologist and several members of her family.  And in 2013, Heritage Foundation received $26 million from the family of the late Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis.

To put these gifts into perspective, in 2013, the Heritage Foundation received contributions and grants totaling around $102 million.  In 2012, it received  around $78 million.

WSJ Reminds Writers How to Cite Political Leanings of Think Tanks

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has just sent out a reminder to its writers on how to address various style and substance issues, including how to address the political leanings of think tanks.  Here is more:

"A reminder in this political season that we should be careful to classify the political leanings of the think tanks we mention in articles.  As noted in 2009, the designations 'liberal,' 'conservative,' and 'libertarian' are appropriate.  'Progressive' isn't.  If there is any doubt about what to call a think tank, double check with the Washington bureau."

In 2009, WSJ said it should "endeavor to classify the political leanings" of the think tanks its mentions in articles, to give readers a "reliable signpost."  The newspaper noted that the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a liberal think tank, had recently been called "progressive" in a recent article.  WSJ said the word progressive is "a label some groups prefer because, after all, who doesn't like to be considered progressive?"  Here is more of what the WSJ said at that time:

It isn’t always easy to nail down the slant, if any, of individual think tanks. The conservative, liberal and libertarian designations as listed on Wikipedia are fairly reliable, but not infallible. The site also lists “centrist” groups, which we don’t consider a meaningful label, especially because some of those called centrist on the list are openly affiliated with political parties. Nonpartisan, if accurate, is better than “centrist.”  If other labeling is elusive, we can at least try to describe the think tank’s financing when it is appropriate: union-funded, or lawyer-funded,etc...

Think Tank watch is currently in the process of making a chart of dozens of think tanks and their political orientation compared to other think tanks.

In the meantime, one decent grouping of think tanks by political ideology can be found in this study by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).  But, according to WSJ standards, many of the ideological groupings would not pass editorial muster.  For example, Brookings is listed as "centrist" when in reality, it is left-leaning.  And the Cato Institute is listed as "center-right" when a more accurate description is libertarian.

By the way, WSJ is not the only media outlet that is thinking about think tank ideology.  For example, in 2011, NPR said it often does a lousy job in identifying the background of think tanks.  And inevitably, some think tanks, such as the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), fight to have their ideology as obfuscated as possible.

Here is an article from 2011 entitled "Calculating The Ideologies of Powerful Think Tanks."  Among other things, it contains a list of the 20 most cited think tanks and where they stand on the political spectrum.  Here is another list of think tanks by ideology, including Canadian think tanks.

Another interesting question: Is there media bias against certain types of think tanks?

Think Tank Quickies (#188)

• Thomas Pritzker appointed Chairman of CSIS's Board of Trustees; succeeds former senator Sam Nunn, who will remain as Chairman Emeritus.
• Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint gives keynote at Jackson Hole summit.
• Professor attacks African think tanks as "tanks that do not think."
• Is Bangalore the next think tank hub?
• Cato "goes off the rails" on health policy?
• Sri Lanka made hundreds of contacts with US think tanks in 2014.
• Emanuel Pastreich: Think tanks suffer from a number of shortcomings.
• Bruce Jones named VP and Director of Foreign Policy at Brookings; Hamilton Project at Brookings appoints Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach as new director.
• Rexon Ryu, former Chief of Staff to former DefSec Chuck Hagel, joins Carnegie as Senior Advisor.
• CSIS hires Olga Oliker from RAND to replace Andy Kuchins who will head Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service; Kuchins will be a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at CSIS.
•  Two leading US think tanks (CEIP and Stimson) say that Pakistan will have 350+ nuclear weapons in a decade.

Think Tank Quickies (#184)

• What are think tanks thinking about EU-China relations? (via European Parliamentary Research Service)
• Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and IMF chief Christine Lagarde speak at Brookings on July 8; DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson speaks at CSIS on July 8.
• Cato scholar blasts Atlantic Council for allowing Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to speak.
• Cato Institute on the miracle of air-conditioning.
• NBR scholar (and former CNAS scholar) Abraham Denmark named as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia.
• AEI President Arthur Brooks' new book Conservative Heart coming out July 14.
• Lauren Bohn: Male talkfest at think tanks isn't just anecdotal.
• CSIS pics of disputed islands used to attack China on environment.
• World Bank deletes section on China report.  Do think tanks also cave into the same pressure?