The Heritage Foundation

Early years

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner, and Joseph Coors. Growing out of the new business activist movement inspired by the Powell Memorandum, discontent with Richard Nixon's embrace of the "liberal consensus" and the nonpolemical, cautious nature of existing think tanks, Weyrich and Feulner sought to create an organization that would supply policymakers with concise, timely position papers. With $200,000 from Coors, the Analysis and Research Association was created in 1970. New supporters and board members joined, including petroleum executive Edward Noble and Richard Mellon Scaife. Eventually, the organization split into a public interest law center and a separate public policy foundation, the latter of which was incorporated as The Heritage Foundation on February 16, 1973. Weyrich was its first president. Later, under president Frank J. Walton, the Heritage Foundation began using direct mail fundraising and Heritage's annual income grew to $1 million per year in 1976. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense".

Reagan administration years

In January 1981 Heritage published the Mandate for Leadership, a comprehensive report aimed at reducing the size of the federal government containing more than 2,000 specific suggestions to move the federal government in a conservative direction. The report was well received by the White House, and several of its authors went on to take positions in the Reagan administration. Reagan liked the ideas so much that he gave a copy to each member of his cabinet to overview. Approximately 60% of the 2,000 proposals were implemented or initiated by the end of Reagan's first year in office. Ronald Reagan later on said that the Heritage Foundation played a "vital force" in the successes during his presidency.

Heritage also advocated the development of new ballistic missile defense systems for the United States. Reagan adopted this as his top defense priority in 1983, calling it the Strategic Defense Initiative. By mid-decade, The Heritage Foundation had emerged as a key organization in the national conservative movement, publishing influential reports on domestic and defense issues, as well as pieces by prominent conservative figures, such as Bob Dole and Pat Robertson. In 1986, Time called Heritage "the foremost of the new breed of advocacy tanks". During the Reagan and Bush administrations, The Heritage Foundation served as the President's brain trust on foreign policy.

George H. W. Bush administration years

The Heritage Foundation remained an influential voice on domestic and foreign policy issues during President George H. W. Bush's administration. It was a leading proponent of Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, and—according to Frank Starr, head of the Baltimore Sun's Washington bureau—the foundation's studies "laid much of the groundwork for Bush administration thinking" about post-Soviet foreign policy. In domestic policy, the Bush administration agreed with six of the ten budget reforms contained in Mandate for Leadership III and included them in their 1990 budget proposal. Heritage also became involved in the culture wars of the 1990s with the publication of "The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators" by William Bennett. The Index documented how crime, illegitimacy, divorce, teenage suicide, drug use and fourteen other social indicators had become measurably worse since the 1960s.

Clinton administration years

Heritage continued to grow throughout the 1990s and its journal, Policy Review, hit an all-time-high circulation of 23,000. Heritage was an opponent of the Clinton health care plan of 1993. President Clinton's welfare reforms were analogous with Heritage's recommendations and were adopted in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. In 1995, Heritage published the first Index of Economic Freedom, co-authored by policy analyst Bryan T. Johnson and Thomas P. Sheehy. In 1997, the Index became a joint project between the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal.

In 1994, Heritage advised Newt Gingrich and other conservatives on the development of the "Contract with America", which was credited with helping to produce a Republican majority in Congress. The "Contract" was a pact of principles that directly challenged both the political status-quo in Washington and many of the ideas at the heart of the Clinton administration.

George W. Bush administration years

In 2005, The Washington Post criticized the Heritage Foundation for softening its criticism of Malaysia following a business relationship between Heritage's president and Malaysia's then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The Heritage Foundation denied any conflict of interest, stating its views on Malaysia changed following the country's cooperation with the U.S. after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and changes by Malaysia "moving in the right economic and political direction".

Obama administration years

In December 2012, an announcement was made that Senator Jim DeMint would resign from the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation. Pundits have predicted his tenure may mark a sharper edge for the Foundation. On May 10, 2013, Jason Richwine, who co-authored the think tank's controversial report on the costs of amnesty, resigned his position following intensive media attention on his Harvard PhD thesis from 2009 and comments he made at a 2008 American Enterprise Institute forum. Richwine argued that Hispanics and blacks are intellectually inferior to whites and have trouble assimilating because of a supposed genetic predisposition to lower IQ.

A 2011 study on poverty in America was criticized in opinion editorials published by The New Republic, The Nation, the Center for American Progress, and The Washington Post.

A 2013 study by Heritage senior fellow Robert Rector on the 2013 Senate Immigration Bill (Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013) was criticized for its methodology by critics from across the political spectrum. Notably, outlets like Reason Magazine and the Cato Institute criticized the report for failing to employ dynamic scoring despite Heritage's support for such methodology in analyzing other policy proposals. The study was also criticized because its co-author, Jason Richwine, said in his 2009 doctoral dissertation that immigrants' I.Q.'s should be considered when crafting public policy.

In July 2013, following disputes over the farm bill, the Republican Study Committee of 172 conservative U.S. House members reversed a decades-old tradition of access by barring Heritage Foundation employees from attending its weekly meeting in the Capitol, but continues cooperation through "regular joint events and briefings".

In September 2015, the Foundation stated publicly that it had been targeted by hackers and had experienced a breach in which donors' information was taken. The publication The Hill compared the attack to another notable data breach at the Office of Personnel Management a few months before. The identity of those that attacked the Foundation and their motivations are unknown.

Trump administration

The Foundation helped prepare for the presidential transition of Donald Trump before and following his election. "Three sources from different conservative groups said that Heritage employees have been soliciting, stockpiling and vetting résumés for months with an eye on stacking Trump’s administration with conservative appointees across the government effort to have the right kind of people in there."

Policy influence

According to the 2016 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report published by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Heritage is ranked 12th among "Top Think Tanks Worldwide" and 7th among "Top Think Tanks in the United States". Other "Top Think Tank" rankings include 25th in Defense and National Security, 6th in Domestic Economic Policy, 14th in Education Policy, 24th in Foreign Policy and International Affairs, 10th in Domestic Health Policy, 30th in International Economic Policy, 10th in Social Policy, 12th in Transparency and Good Governance, 1st in Best Advocacy Campaign, 13th in Best Managed Think Tanks, 7th in Best New Idea or Paradigm Developed, 18th in Best Think Tank Network, 5th in Best Use of Social Networks, 9th in Think Tanks to Watch in 2017, 5th in Best External Relations/Public Engagement Programs, 3rd in Best Use of the Internet, 7th in Best Use of Media, 10th in Most Innovative Policy Ideas/Proposals, 8th in Most Significant Impact on Public Policy, and 17th in Outstanding Policy-Oriented Public Programs.

Heritage has hosted many influential foreign and domestic political leaders since its founding, including members of Congress, foreign heads of state, and U.S. presidents. On November 1, 2007, President George W. Bush visited Heritage to defend his appointment of Michael Mukasey to succeed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States; Mukasey's nomination faced opposition in the U.S. Senate over the nominee's refusal to label the interrogation tactic of waterboarding as illegal. Mukasey was confirmed and became Attorney General eight days later.

The health insurance mandate in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is an idea hatched in 1989 by Stuart M. Butler at Heritage in a publication titled "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans". This was also the model for Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts.

In October 2011, The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) announced they would co-host the Republican Party presidential candidates' debate on foreign policy and national defense. The event took place at Constitution Hall on November 22, 2011, and was the first presidential debate to be sponsored by either Heritage or AEI.

Several Heritage Foundation personnel have served, or gone on to serve, in senior governmental roles, including: Richard V. Allen, L. Paul Bremer, Elaine Chao, Lawrence Di Rita, Michael Johns, John Lehman, and Edwin Meese.

Publications and activities

Heritage's 1981 book of policy analysis, Mandate for Leadership, was a landmark in advocacy for limited government. At 1,000-plus pages, Mandate for Leadership offered specific recommendations on policy, budget and administrative action for all Cabinet departments.

Until 2001, the Heritage Foundation published Policy Review, a public policy journal, which was then acquired by the Hoover Institution. From 1995 to 2005, the Heritage Foundation ran Townhall.com, a conservative website that was subsequently acquired by Camarillo, California-based Salem Communications. In 2005, the Foundation published The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, a clause-by-clause analysis of the United States Constitution.

Once per year Heritage publishes its Budget Chart Book using visual graphs and charts to demonstrate the growth of federal spending, revenue, debt and deficits, and entitlement programs. The chart relies on 42 visual images to convey its data, which Heritage makes available to the public for free distribution.

Policy analysts and fellows of the Heritage Foundation frequently publish books, both through Heritage and other non-fiction imprints. Among independent publications, in 2010 the Intercollegiate Studies Institute published We Still Hold These Truths by director of American Studies Matthew Spalding.

Indices

Internationally, and in partnership with the Wall Street Journal, Heritage publishes the annual Index of Economic Freedom, which measures a country's freedom in terms of property rights and freedom from government regulation. The factors used to calculate the Index score are corruption in government, barriers to international trade, income tax and corporate tax rates, government expenditures, rule of law and the ability to enforce contracts, regulatory burdens, banking restrictions, labor regulations, and black market activities. Deficiencies lower the score on Heritage's Index. The Heritage Foundation also publishes The Insider, a quarterly magazine about public policy.

Charles W. L. Hill, after discussing the international shift toward a market-based economic system and Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, said "given that the Heritage Foundation has a political agenda, its work should be viewed with caution."

In 2002, Heritage began publishing its annual Index of Dependence report on the growth of federal government programs that constrain private sector or local government alternatives and impact the dependence of individuals on the federal government. It examines programs in five broad categories: housing; health care and welfare; retirement; higher education; and rural and agricultural services. The report has found that each year the number of Americans who pay nothing in federal personal income taxes continues to increase, while there is a simultaneous increase in the number who rely on government services. The 2010 report found that Americans' dependence on government grew by 13.6% in 2009 during the worst U.S. economic crisis since the Great Depression. According to Heritage, this is the biggest increase since 1976 and the fifth largest going back to 1962, when the foundation began tracking dependence. The report stated that in the previous eight years, the index of government dependence has grown by almost 33 percent.

Digital communications

Until 2014, the Heritage Foundation published a blog, The Foundry, with reporting provided by Heritage staff and fellows. News stories originally published by The Foundry have been reported by media outlets, including reporting on a 15-cent Christmas Tree tax proposed by the Obama administration. Following a Heritage blog post by David Addington that was critical of the tax, the story was reported by ABC News, and according to Fox News, this criticism in the media led to a delay in the implementation of the tax.

In 2014, The Foundry was phased out and replaced with The Daily Signal, the Heritage Foundation's multimedia news organization.

Since 2006, the Foundation has hosted "The Bloggers Briefing", a meeting of conservative and independent bloggers organized by Robert Bluey. According to Bluey, the meetings were launched to provide conservative bloggers with greater understanding of conservative policy debates and a forum to discuss ideas, as there was then no regular meeting of people involved in the conservative blogosphere. Guest speakers at the meetings have included Jon Huntsman, John Boehner and Robert Novak, and the briefings are video recorded and live streamed on the Internet.

In June 2011, Heritage launched "Scribe", an investigative journalism feature by Robert Bluey for its blog, The Foundry. At the time of its launch, Bluey stated that Scribe would feature "long-form investigative stories" focusing on important policy issues, video report, analysis and breaking news. Scribe is part of a trend of "think tank journalism" using the knowledge of Heritage policy experts to inform investigative stories.

According to The Next Web, the Foundation "has strong followings on most major platforms – from YouTube to Twitter to Facebook". Rory Cooper, the Foundation's communications director, stated that the organization uses social media platforms such as Facebook for issue-based campaigns to provide individuals and the media with information directly from the Foundation.

Other media

In 2009, Heritage produced 33 Minutes, a one-hour documentary film about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States, titled after the time required for a long-range nuclear ballistic missile to be fired from any distant hostile nation and deliver its payload to any American city. The film interviews numerous foreign policy experts, including former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, professor and journalist James Carafano, weapons scientist Ken Alibek, former White House Chief of Staff Edwin Meese, and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Heritage Foundation has hosted viewings of this film, followed by panel discussions.

The foundation sponsors the radio show Istook Live!, which is hosted by former congressman Ernest Istook and a production of Heritage's sister organization, Heritage Action for America.

Republican presidential debate

On November 22, 2011, The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute co-hosted the Republican Party presidential candidates' debate on foreign policy and national defense held at Constitution Hall. The event was the first presidential debate to be sponsored by either Heritage or AEI. During the debate, Heritage fellows Edwin Meese and David Addington were among those who questioned candidates on policy. The debate was praised by The New York Times for putting "pressure on candidates to show their policy expertise". According to conservative commentator Michael Barone, the debate was "probably the most substantive and serious presidential debate of this election cycle."

Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom

In 2005, Heritage established the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom in honor of the former British Prime Minister, sponsoring hundreds of events involving world leaders since its inception. Thatcher herself maintained a long relationship with The Heritage Foundation. Shortly after leaving office, Thatcher was honored by Heritage at a September 1991 dinner. Seven years later, Thatcher delivered the keynote address during Heritage's 25th anniversary celebration. Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol said at the time, "Given that Reagan obviously couldn't be here, I think it was important to have Mrs. Thatcher because she and Reagan are really the great heroes of conservatism in the last few decades and still today." In 2002, Thatcher was again honored by Heritage as the recipient of its annual Clare Boothe Luce Award, which was presented by then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Thatcher was later named Patron of the Heritage Foundation, her only official association with any U.S.-based group.

Associations

The Heritage Foundation is an associate member of the State Policy Network.

Funding

In 1973, businessman Joseph Coors contributed $250,000 to establish The Heritage Foundation and continued to fund it through the Adolph Coors Foundation. In 1973, it had trustees from Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Pfizer, Sears and Mobil.

Heritage is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization as well as a BBB Wise Giving Alliance accredited charity funded by donations from private individuals, corporations and charitable foundations. As a 501(c)(3), Heritage is not required to disclose its donors and donations to the foundation are tax-deductible. According to a MediaTransparency report in 2006, donors have included John M. Olin Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. Other financing as of 2016 includes $28,129,000 from the combined Scaife Foundations of the late billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Heritage is a grantee of the Donors Trust, a nonprofit donor-advised fund. As of 2010, Heritage reported 710,000 supporters. For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2011 Charity Watch reported Edwin J. Feulner, Jr. Past President of The Heritage Foundation received the highest compensation in its top 25 list of compensation received by Charity members. According to Charity Watch, Feulner received $ 2,702,687 in 2013. This sum includes investment earnings of $1,656,230 accrued over a period of 33 years. Heritage's total revenue was $72,170,983 and its expenses were $80,033,828.

In popular culture

The Heritage Foundation was mentioned periodically in the NBC fictional television series The West Wing. The character Patricia Calhoun, a former member of the Office of Management and Budget and a Republican appointee to the Federal Election Commission in the fictional Bartlet administration, is identified as the former Director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Calhoun is depicted in the series as an aggressive advocate of campaign finance reform.

Board of trustees

Honorary and emeritus board members