Think Tanks Helping to Write 4th Coronavirus Stimulus Package

Here is more from the Wall Street Journal:

As lawmakers last week completed a record-shattering economic-rescue package estimated at $2 trillion, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) predicted: “This is certainly not the end of our work here in Congress—rather the end of the beginning.”

Legislators from both parties, administration officials, economists, think tanks and lobbyists are already roughing out the contours of yet another emergency-spending package—perhaps larger than the last—to try to keep the coronavirus crisis from turning into a 21st-century Great Depression. Many expect the debate to begin in earnest by late April.

“There’s talk of a multi-trillion-dollar program, given the size of the shutdown,” says Stephen Moore, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There’s a general recognition that we need something big to get some juice into the economy,” adds Mr. Moore, an outside economic consultant to the Trump administration and some congressional Republicans.

The article notes that Mr. Moore "has discussed with administration officials and congressional Republicans" the idea of suspending the payroll tax through the end of the year.

It also notes that Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has been working with Republican lawmakers on crisis-response measures.

Here are some links to Think Tank Watch's latest pieces on the coronavirus.

Sen. Tom Cotton Attacks New Anti-War Think Tank

Here is more from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Sen. Tom Cotton accused the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a new think tank funded by the billionaires George Soros and Charles Koch, of fostering anti-Semitism in speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

Cotton, R-Ark., referred to anti-Semitism as an “ancient hatred” and referenced recent attacks against Jews in Brooklyn and Monsey.

“[Anti-Semitism] festers in Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an isolationist blame America first money pit for so-called ‘scholars’ who’ve written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish money,” he said in remarks quoted prior to the speech by Jewish Insider.

The institute’s list of affiliated experts includes some figures who have at times been accused by mainstream Jewish groups of crossing from political commentary on Israel into anti-Semitism, such as political scientist John Mearsheimer, author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” No evidence ties any of the experts affiliated with Quincy to the recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks.

More about the Quincy Institute can be found here.

Paul Ryan Launches New Think Tank

Here is more from The Hill:

Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Monday launched a nonprofit organization that will focus on his legislative priorities during his two decades in Congress: fighting poverty, boosting economic opportunity and promoting “evidence-based” reforms on issues like welfare, foster care and criminal justice.

The American Idea Foundation, which will have offices in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., will partner with community organizations, academics and lawmakers. Ryan will serve as president of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Here is a link to the American Idea Foundation website.

Roll Call notes that Ryan has funded his new think tank largely through his political action committee (PAC).

The Washington Examiner notes that the think tank plans to partner with other think tanks to address poverty, drug addiction, education, upward mobility, and other reforms Ryan worked on in Washington.

In September, Ryan joined the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

Top 3 Conservative Think Tanks Collectively Larger than Combined Budget of CRS & CBO

Here is more from E.J. Fagan:

Congress is more polarized and has less capacity to process complex information than ever. These trends are related. As Congress cut the budgets of its own internal think tanks – CRS and CBO – it began to rely more heavily on  party-aligned think tanks. This change makes it more difficult for members and leadership to build consensus and solve policy problems for their constituents.

My work examines the congressional activities of the six largest (by expenditures) party-aligned think tanks. On the right, these include the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and Cato Institute. On the left, they are the Center for American Progress, New America, and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Collectively, these six institutions have grown to a massive size, while Congress’s internal think tanks, the CBO and CRS, are slowly shrinking. The below figure shows how rapidly these six think tanks have grown since 2001. The three conservative think tanks are collectively larger than the combined budget of the CBO and CRS. The three progressive think tanks, which began the 2000s as tiny blips on the screen, now spend over $100 million collectively.

As they have grown, these party-aligned think tanks have become more influential in Congressional debates. One way that I measure the changing influence of think tanks over time is to observe how frequently they testify in hearings. The figure below charts the number of witnesses from the six think tanks per hearing against the staff witnesses from the CBO, CRS, and OTA. The two trends are mirror images of each other. When Congress cut the budgets of its analytical organizations in the mid-90s, there was a subsequent explosion in think tank witnesses. While this explosion subsided after the 104^th Congress, a new equilibrium was established for much of the late-90s and early 2000s. Finally, the series accelerates again in the mid-2000s, as the analytical organization budgets suffered further cuts.

E.J. Fagan is a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin.

Think Tank Watch should note that the RAND Corporation by itself has a budget that is much larger than the CBO and CRS combined.

Think Tank Founded by Bernie Sanders' Wife Shutting Down

Here is more from the Associated Press:

The Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ wife and son, is shutting down, at least for now, amid criticism that the nonprofit has blurred the lines between family, fundraising and campaigning.

The Vermont-based institute has stopped accepting donations and plans to suspend all operations by the end of May “so there could not even be an appearance of impropriety,” Jane Sanders told The Associated Press.

The unexpected move by the institute’s board of directors comes as Bernie Sanders, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination, prepares for a wave of intense scrutiny into his political network and his family’s role in its operation.

The institute was founded to promote liberal policies less than two years ago by Sanders’ family with the backing of pro-Sanders celebrities and advocates— though Sanders himself had no formal role. While it operates at a fraction of the scale of the Clinton Foundation, it has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars during its brief existence and has declined to disclose its donors.

Jane Sanders, who also serves as a chief adviser to her husband’s presidential campaign, is not compensated for her role at the institute. Her son, David Driscoll, is paid $100,000 a year as co-founder and executive director. Driscoll previously was an executive for Nike and the Vermont snowboarding firm Burton, but had no previous nonprofit experience, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Here is a link to the Sanders Institute.  Here is a press release from the think tank about its suspension of operations during the 2020 presidential elections.  Here is a press release from the launch of the Sanders Institute.

Lobbyists Relying on Think Tanks to Develop Ties to New Lawmakers

Here is more from Roll Call:

Instead of PAC dollars, corporate interests plan to rely on individual personal donations from their executives, lobbyists and other consultants, instead of the collective contributions from corporate PACs. In addition, lobbyists will be sure to attend meet-and-greets happening over the coming days and weeks with the new members.

Some lobbyists said they also would rely on policy partnerships with think tanks, grassroots activist organizations and charities — as well as shopping op-eds focused on specific lawmakers — for entree to the newly-elected members of Congress.

Individual corporations often pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to think tanks in order to influence policy and build relations with other organizations, lawmakers, and government agencies.

Sen. Orrin Hatch to Start His Own Think Tank

Here is more from ABC News:

Signed boxing gloves from Muhammad Ali, documents from the Bill Clinton impeachment and 3,000 boxes of other papers and memorabilia from a 42-year career in Washington, D.C., will be part of a library and think tank being named for retiring U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wednesday.

The Orrin G. Hatch Center is partnering with the University of Utah with the goal of "leading a movement" toward bipartisanship and civility in politics.

The center that's envisioned as a columned granite building will also house a full-sized replica of Hatch's Senate office for him to write his memoirs and meet with students.

Groundbreaking for the structure located along a row of stately Salt Lake City buildings like the governor's mansion could be as soon as this summer.

Tax filings show Hatch's foundation raised nearly $6 million by 2016, the most recent year documents are available. Donations have come from places like Visa, the NFL, the tobacco manufacturer Altria and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, according to federal disclosure forms.

Similar centers include the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston and the McCain Institute at Arizona State University.

The Salt Lake Tribune, which says that Hatch is looking to eventually raise $100 million, notes that the entire funding picture of the new think tank may never be known.

A number of long-serving and well-connected lawmakers have gone on to establish their own think tanks, including the above-mentioned John McCain.

Rumor: Paul Ryan Could Become Next President of AEI

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced this week that he will not seek re-election, meaning that he is in the hunt for a new job.

It just so happens that American Enterprise Institute (AEI) President Arthur Brooks recently announced his intention to step down as president of the think tank in the summer of 2019.

Many rumors are floating around that Ryan, a conservative policy wonk, could succeed Brooks as head of AEI.

After all, Ryan has made numerous visits to the think tank over the years, and it would allow him to use his deep connections within the US Congress to continue to build up the reputation and clout of AEI while maintaining contact with the legislative branch.

If all the timelines are kept and Ryan leaves Capitol Hill around late December, that would give him around six or seven months to enjoy a post-Speaker "retirement" as he prepares to transition into think tank land.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about Ryan's connections to think tanks.

Stay tuned...

Sen. Sasse Declines Top Job at Heritage Foundation

Although the salary would likely be more than six times as much as his current salary as a US senator, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) has declined an offer to lead the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.  Here is more from Politico:

The Heritage Foundation has approached one of the Senate’s leading anti-Trump Republicans, Ben Sasse, to gauge his interest in serving as president — an indication the influential conservative think tank may turn away from its supportive posture toward the president.

Sasse, who was elected to his first term in the Senate in 2014, has swatted down the overtures from Heritage’s board of trustees, according to two sources familiar with the recruitment effort. The Nebraska senator rose to national prominence when he announced early in the primary calendar that he would support neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton, and he has been a persistent critic of Trump ever since.

The entreaties are one sign that Heritage may be looking to change course after the May ouster of its former president, Jim DeMint. In the Senate, DeMint was a leading antagonist of establishment Republicans, and at Heritage he suffered from the perception that the organization was becoming too political — and too reflexively pro-Trump — as its focus on scholarship fell by the wayside.

Kay Coles James, a member of the Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees' Presidential Search Committee, said in a statement that the group is considering more than 200 people for the job, "many of them nationally renowned. We have engaged a professional search firm and we look forward to reviewing the candidates they suggest.”

The organization’s interest in Sasse — sources say board members have been persistent to the point of irritating the senator — indicates that it is looking for a reset. Other conservative think tanks have been less explicitly pro-Trump than Heritage was under DeMint. While American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, for example, has sought to explain the source of Trump’s support, he has stopped short of expressing support for him.

Jim DeMint earned $1.1 million from Heritage in 2015, and US senators make $174,000 per year.  If Sen. Sasse took the job, his likely salary for one year (before taxes) would be approaching his entire net worth, which is estimated to be around $1.48 million.

In related news, here is what former Mr. DeMint is up to these days.

Wife of Bernie Sanders Launches Think Tank

Think tanks may be losing credibility, but they are gaining in numbers.  Here is more on the latest think tank being formed, from USA Today:

A team of Berniecrats, including Jane O’Meara Sanders, launched a nonprofit, educational organization today that aims to “revitalize democracy” with progressive policies to address economic, environmental, racial and social justice issues.

“The Sanders Institute” is one of the organizations that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said last year would be created to help raise awareness of “enormous crises” facing Americans after he ended his bid for the Democratic nomination. His wife Jane is one of the 11 founding fellows who will direct the organization. Bernie Sanders will have no role in leading the institute.

The Sanders Institute has an office in Burlington and three staff members, but the fellows are participating as volunteers. Jane Sanders said she and the senator have contributed $25,000 of their personal funds to help cover startup costs of about $125,000, and they intend to be ongoing contributors. "Our Revolution" the political spinoff organization from the Sanders campaign, has provided the rest in seed money, which will be repaid as the nonprofit begins raising money for its work, she said.

Other founding fellows include high-profile advisers and supporters from the Sanders campaign. They are Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton’s labor secretary; Vermont author and environmentalist Bill McKibben; actor Danny Glover; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii; economist Stephanie Kelton; Ben Jealous, former NAACP president and chief executive officer and now a gubernatorial candidate in Maryland; author and civil rights activist Cornel West; Former Ohio state senator Nina Turner; economist Jeffrey Sachs; and entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte.

The new Sanders Institute website can be found here.  Salon says that the Institute will function as a hybrid between a think tank and an educational center.

The Sanders Institute is not the only think tank connected to a sitting US senator.  Another example is the McCain Institute for International Leadership, connected to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Heritage Demanding Supreme Court Blockade Under Clinton

Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the think tank Heritage Foundation, has weighed in on the Supreme Court a number of times this year and continues to do so as Election Day nears.

Here is more from The Hill:

The conservative group Heritage Action is pushing Republican senators to keep the Supreme Court at eight justices if Democrat Hillary Clinton is elected president.

In a Thursday morning briefing at the Heritage Foundation’s Washington headquarters on Capitol Hill, the group said Republicans should embrace the idea of leaving the Supreme Court without its ninth justice, perhaps for as long as five years.

Dan Holler, Heritage Action’s vice president of communications and government relations, signaled that this year’s Republican blockade of President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, is just the beginning of a fight that could last the entire first term of a Clinton presidency.

A number of people from the Heritage Foundation are advisors to Trump and some work on his transition team.  Scholars from the think tank also helped shape Mr. Trump's Supreme Court nominee list.

Think Tanker Attacked by Name on Senate Floor...22 Years Later

There is some good news for think tankers out there who are wondering if the policy papers they write get any attention.  They certainly do, although it can sometimes take decades.  The case of former think tanker Sasha Volokh is a perfect example.  Here is what he just wrote for the Washington Post:

One of the problems with working in policy — whether at think tanks or in academia — is that it’s hard to measure one’s impact. We kind of believe that ideas have some effect in the real world (if we’re being optimistic), but it’s rare for us to see the evidence as to ourselves personally. Even intermediate measures — do people even read our stuff? — can be hard to come by.

In my case, I finally know that someone is reading my work from 22 years ago! Straight out of college, in 1993-94, I worked at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market policy organization in Washington, D.C. One of the areas I worked in a lot was the FDA and tobacco policy — this was shortly before the Clinton FDA asserted jurisdiction over tobacco, a move that the Supreme Court said in FDA v. Brown & Williamson (2000) was contrary to the statute. The capstone of that year was getting my first Wall Street Journal op-ed published: “Feel a Heart Attack Coming? Go to France."

Last week, I finally got tangible proof that someone was reading my pieces from back then. As part of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D-NH) attack on CEI, she said..."CEI lobbied politicians, conducted symposia, and published policy papers and op-eds with titles such as ‘Safety Is a Relative Thing for Cars: Why Not for Cigarettes?’ CEI’s then-policy analyst, Alexander Volokh, even went so far as to describe the act of smoking as a civic duty."

The video of the attack can be viewed here (go to 5:15).  So do not fear you young think tankers.  After all, you too may one day have your paper blasted on the Senate or House floor, just like Mr. Volokh.

Congressional Testimony by Think Tanker Forces Funding Disclosures

Here is what the conservative Free Beacon is reporting about the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution:

The Brookings Institution, one of the country’s top left-leaning think tanks, has for the first time admitted to Congress that it receives millions of dollars every year from foreign governments, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to official disclosure forms obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The disclosure of these figures comes as a result of a recently implemented federal law mandating that those who testify before Congress reveal any potential conflicts created as a result of funding by foreign entities.

The disclosure form, which is presented to Congress before an individual testifies, reveals that Brookings received nearly $15 million from the Embassy of Qatar between 2013 and 2015. Brookings also maintains a facility in the Qatari capital of Doha, where Hamas is known to operate freely.

The think tank received another $1,920,000 from the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates between those same years.

These disclosures came as a result of a Sept. 17 congressional hearing at which Suzanne Maloney, a Brookings senior fellow, offered testimony on Iran’s relationship with the terrorist group Hezbollah.

The forms further reveal that, in addition to the millions in foreign donations, Brookings has received federal grants.

Both the foreign donations and federal grants “were for independent research and analysis related to an number of subject matters,” according to Maloney. A “portion” of these funds may have been “related to the hearing,” which discussed the ways in which Hezbollah stands to profit from Iran in the wake of the recent nuclear deal.

When questioned about the foreign donations by the New York Times last year, Martin Indyk, a Brookings scholar who has also worked with the Obama administration, defended the practice and maintained that it does not bias his views.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on the new congressional rules on think tank funding disclosure.  Think Tank Watch has predicted that fewer think tankers will be testifying before Congress so they do not have to disclose the sources of their funds.

In fiscal year 2014, Brookings said it received 58% of its funding from grants, 37% from "contributions and endowments," and 5% from publications and "miscellaneous."

Out of the grants that Brookings receives, 28% are from foundations, 9% from foreign governments, 7% from corporations, 6% from individuals, 6% from "other," and 2% from the US government.

Here is a historical look from the Washington Post about the Brookings' funding.  And here is a Washington Post piece on how donors may have an impact on the research agenda at the world's #1 think tank.

Think Tank Watch should point out that it is already common knowledge that Brookings was receiving millions of dollars from these foreign governments and others.

Also, as we previously noted, investigative reporter Brooke Williams, who helped write the influential New York Times piece last year titled "Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks," created a website earlier this year where one can search and explore foreign government contributions to think tanks.  That site (thinktankdonors.org) can be found here.