Information AboutCato Institute |
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The Cato Institute is a large Libertarian , Non-profit public policy research foundation ( Think Tank ) headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Institute's stated mission is "to broaden the parameters of Public Policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited Government , individual Liberty , Free Market s, and Peace " by seeking greater involvement of the "lay public in questions of public policy and the role of government." HISTORY The Institute was founded in San Francisco, California in 1977 by Edward H. Crane and initially funded by Charles G. Koch . The Institute is named after '' Cato's Letters '', a series of British essays penned in the early 18th century expounding the political views of philosopher John Locke , which were in turn named after Cato The Younger , the defender of republican institutions in Rome. An important founding member was Murray Rothbard , one of Cato's original three board members and the one who suggested its name. Rothbard later came into sharp disagreement with other members, and left in 1981. In November 2002, shortly after Cato was named the "Best Advocacy Website" by the Web Marketing Association, the Alexa Ratings service issued a report saying that it was "the most popular think tank site over the past three months," receiving a total of 188,901 unique visitors during the previous month of September {Link without Title} . PUBLICATIONS The Cato Institute publishes the periodicals ''Cato Journal'', ''Regulation'', ''Cato Supreme Court Review'', and ''Cato Policy Report''; policy studies; and books, such as ''Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction''; ''In Defense of Global Capitalism''; ''Voucher Wars''; ''You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws''; ''Peace and Freedom: A Foreign Policy for a Constitutional Republic''; ''Restoring the Lost Constitution''; and ''Reclaiming the Mainstream: Individualist Feminism Reconsidered''. They published ''Inquiry'' magazine from 1977 to 1984. IDEOLOGY The Cato Institute states that it favors "individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” Virtually every American shares these general goals, including Cato’s ideological opponents. However, many would disagree with some or all of Cato's specific policy proposals, which include such measures as abolishing the Minimum Wage , ending the prohibition of drug use, and abolishing restrictions on racial and gender-based discrimination by private sector firms. Though officially non-partisan, Cato is heavily linked to the Republican Party and the conservative movement in general. The large donors who fund both Cato and Republican candidates include Fed Ex founder Fred Smith , Australian-born media tycoon and Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch , tobacco-maker Phillip Morris , the John M. Olin Foundation , and Charles Koch . Cato also draws its staff largely from a Washington DC-based pool of Republican writers and lobbyists. This is despite the fact that Cato frequently differs with Republican Party positions. Only a small minority of Republicans subscribe to Cato’s Laissez-faire economic policies, as evidenced when the Republican controlled Congress refused to even consider President George W. Bush ’s 2005 proposals to partially privatize Social Security , an idea strongly backed by the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute established its Project on Social Security Privatization in 1995, renaming it the Project on Social Security Choice in 2002 in response to a shift in the rhetoric of the Republican Party, which repudiated the term "privatization" as a description of its policies Cato's plan involves giving workers the option to invest half of their contributions (6.2 per cent) in individual accounts, in return for forgoing the accrual of any future Social Security entitlements. The plan rests on the assumption the individual accounts can earn higher returns than Social Security, without an offsetting increase in risk. This controversial assumption reflects the Equity Premium Puzzle , that the rate of return on equity (in which individual accounts would be invested) is higher, relative to bonds (in which Social Security is invested) than appears to be justified by a Risk Premium . [http://www.socialsecurity.org/pubs/ssps/ssp32.pdf Cato’s social or foreign policy ideas are also generally not popular among Republicans. Cato was opposed to President George W. Bush 's 2003 Invasion Of Iraq , favors the legalization of all drugs, and opposes the USA Patriot Act . Cato also disagreed with President George H. W. Bush 's decision to fight the first Gulf War . In 2003 Cato supported the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence V. Texas , which struck down the few remaining state laws that made private and noncommercial sexual relations between consenting adults illegal. Cato stongly criticized the 1998 settlement that many U.S. states signed with the Tobacco Industry . {Link without Title} . The Cato Institute holds regular briefings on Global Warming with known ‘climate skeptics' as panelists. In December 2003, panelists included Patrick Michaels , Robert Balling and John Christy , all of whom disagree with the scientific mainstream on the issue of climate change. No known mechanism can stop global warming in the near term. International agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, would have no detectable effect on average temperature within any reasonable policy time frame of 50 years or so, even with full compliance. Chapter 47 of the Cato Handbook for Congress, 107 Congress'' In response to the World Watch Report in May 2003 that linked climate change and severe weather events: "It's false. There is absolutely no evidence that extreme weather events are on the increase. None. The argument that more and more dollar damages accrue is a reflection of the greater amount of wealth we've created." - Jerry Taylor Source: "Enviro Trends: Poor to Bear Brunt of Climate Change. 3 May 2003" FUNDING The Cato Institute has a budget of about $15 million a year, derived from 15,000 contributors. More than 70 % of its funding comes from individuals, with about 12 % from foundations and 6 % from corporations. According to one critical source, in the 17 years spanning 1985 to 2001, the Institute received $15,633,540 in 108 separate grants from eight different foundations:
Rupert Murdoch has served on the board of directors of Cato, and was at the time also on the board of tobacco company Phillip Morris . It has been reported by critical sources that Cato has received substantial funding from Phillip Morris and other tobacco companies, though it was never more than 1 or 2 % of the institute's funding. The Knight Ridder newspapers reported that the Institute had received backing from "the American International Group , an insurance and financial services company whose business includes managing U.S. retirement plans" as Social Security reform has become a more prominent issue. {Link without Title} CATO, AYN RAND, AND OBJECTIVISM Ayn Rand in her later years condemned the libertarian movement; nonetheless a portrait of Rand is placed outside of Cato's Hayek Auditorium as part of its Pantheon of great libertarian thinkers. The current president of the Objectivist Center is Ed Hudgins, who was long a Cato staffer before taking this position. Cato has very warm relations with David Kelley and other "renegade" Objectivists, while the Objectivists who support Rand's heir Leonard Peikoff and the Ayn Rand Insitute despise all libertarian organizations. When Cato Executive Vice-President David Boaz created an anthology of libertarian essays, Peikoff refused to allow any of Rand's works to be included. Boaz still felt he had to include a work of Ayn Rand's in his book, so he printed the famous '' Playboy '' Interview of Ayn Rand, whose copyright Rand's heirs did not control. NOTABLE ASSOCIATES Policy scholars
Adjunct scholars
Fellows
Associates in the news Several Cato Institute affilliated scholars have achieved academic distinction, including Nobel laureates F. A. Hayek, James M. Buchanan, and Vernon L. Smith. Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett argued the Raich v. Gonzales case in front of the Supreme Court in 2004. Mencken Fellow P. J. O'Rourke is the bestselling author of ''Parliament of Whores'', ''All the Trouble in the World'', and other books. In 1999 , David Platt Rall , a prominent Environmental Scientist , died in a car accident. Steven Milloy , at the time a Cato adjunct scholar, celebrated Rall's tragic death on his site junkscience.com, writing: "Scratch one junk scientist who promoted the bankrupt idea that poisoning rats with a chemical predicts cancer in humans exposed to much lower levels of the chemical -- a notion that, at the very least, has wasted billions and billions of public and private dollars." Cato Institute President Edward Crane called Milloy's attack an "inexcusable lapse in judgement and civility", but Milloy refused to apologize. He retained his position with Cato until the end of 2005. Following renewed controversy over the financial support Milloy received from tobacco companies, while writing editorial pieces favorable to them, Milloy's name was removed from the list of Cato adjunct scholars. In December 2005, Doug Bandow , a senior scholar at the Cato Institute, admitted taking secret payments from Lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns for the Copley News Service favorable to Abramoff clients (the columns did not, apparently, deviate from Bandow's own views). The news service suspended Bandow's column, and Bandow resigned from Cato on December 15. MILTON FRIEDMAN PRIZE Since 2002, the Cato Institute has awarded the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty every two years to "an individual who has made a significant contribution to advancing human freedom." The prize comes with a cash award of $ 500,000. Past recipients
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