Information AboutCato Institute |
The Cato Institute is a Libertarian 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 striving "to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, lay public in questions of (public) policy and the proper 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 . The essays were named after Cato The Younger , the defender of republican institutions in Rome . Murray Rothbard was an important founding member. He was part of Cato's original three-member board and suggested its name. After he came into sharp disagreement with other members, he left in 1981.http://www.mises.org/journals/lf/1981/1981_01-04.pdf Cato relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1981, settling first in a townhouse on Capitol Hill. The institute moved to its current location on Massachusetts Avenue in 1993. In November 2002, shortly after Cato's website 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.http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39246-2002Nov25?language=printer PUBLICATIONS The Cato Institute publishes the periodicals ''Cato's Letter'' , ''Cato Journal'' , ''Regulation'' , ''Cato Supreme Court Review'' , and ''Cato Policy Report'' , as well as policy studies . Cato's books include ''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''. Also, Cato published Inquiry Magazine from 1977 to 1984. PRINCIPLES According to its motto, the Cato Institute advocates policies that advance "individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” Cato scholars are libertarian in their policy positions, typically advocating diminished government intervention in domestic, social, and economic policies and decreased military and political intervention worldwide. Specific policy proposals advanced by Cato scholars include such measures as abolishing the minimum wage,http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/06/14/house-faces-the-dumbest-bill-of-the-year-so-far-a-210-increase-in-the-minimum-wage/ reforming illegal-drug policies,http://www.cato.org/current/drug-war/index.html eliminating corporate welfare and Trade Barrier s,http://www.cato.org/fiscal/corporate-welfare.html diminishing federal government involvement in the marketplacehttp://www.cato.org/research/regulatory-studies/index.html and in local and state issues,http://www.cato.org/ccs/federalism.html enhanced school choice,http://www.cato.org/research/education/choice.html and abolishing government-enforced discrimination along with restrictions on discrimination by private parties.http://www.cato.org/research/civilrights/index.html Cato's strained relationship with conservatism In the years immediately following the Republican Revolution , the Cato Institute was often seen as a standard-bearer of the U.S. conservative political movement. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan , credited with reshaping and rejuvenating the Republican Party , and key contributors to the late-20th Century conservative movement, were heavily influenced by libertarian ideals. However, the Cato Institute officially resists being lumped in with the conservative movement because "conservative smacks of an unwillingness to change, of a desire to preserve the status quo;"http://cato.org/about/about.html such tensions have become increasingly evident in recent years, as the Institute has become sharply critical of current Republican standard bearers. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040913&s=risen091304The growing division may be attributable to Republican officeholders' growing support of policies promoting government intervention in the economy and society, increased budgetary spending, and conservative foreign policies. Cato scholars have also been strongly critical of the expansion of executive power under the younger President Bushhttp://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6330, and his management of the Iraq War.http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&pid=1441206&method=search&t=iraq&a=&k=&aeid=&adv=&pg= In 2006 and 2007, Cato published two books critical of the Republican Party's perceived abandonment of the limited-government ideals that swept them into power in 1994. http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&pid=1441325 http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=cats&scid=37&pid=1441337 For their part, only a minority of Republican congressmen supported President George W. Bush ’s 2005 Proposal to partially privatize Social Security , an idea strongly backed by the Institute. And in the 109th Congress , President Bush's immigration plan — which was based on a proposal by Cato scholar Dan Griswold http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-019es.html — went down to defeat largely due to the eventual opposition of conservative Republicans congressmen. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/27/AR2006052700802_pf.html Cato on Social Security The Cato Institute established its Project on Social Security Privatization in 1995, renaming it the Project on Social Security Choice in 2002. The change sought to emphasize that its proposals would allow Americans to opt-in or -out of the program. Like other organizations supporting the 'personal healthcare savings accounts' concept, Cato scholars now avoid using the word "privatization" in describing such policies, due to the presently unpopular sentiments that the public associates with it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29418-2005Jan22.html Cato's Social Security proposal involves giving workers the option of investing half of their contributions (6.2 per cent) into individual accounts, in return for forgoing the accrual of any future Social Security entitlement benefits. For workers selecting this option, future claims on already-accrued Social Security benefits could be sold as bonds, allowing the workers to re-invest those funds in higher-yielding securities, if desired. However, for these workers, past and future "payroll tax" contributions to Social Security, nominally made on behalf of the employer, would go to funding the Social Security benefits of people remaining in the traditional system. Cato scholars have emphasized that the present Social Security system is unsustainable, and will necessitate future tax hikes and benefit cuts to make ends meet. Because of the "pay as you go" nature of the system, present workers are taxed to support past ones (i.e., current retirees). As the ratio of workers-to-retirees drops, workers will bear an increasing payroll-tax burden. Cato scholars also emphasize the benefits of inheritability. Unlike the status quo, Cato's plan would allow a worker who dies before reaching their (variable) retirement age to leave the assets in his/her personal account to legal heirs. Critics have charged that Cato's plan relies on a pivotal assumption: that the projected returns from the stock market -- which is where the account funds would be invested -- will outweigh the increased risk of possibly losing those funds, if stock market performance is worse than expected . Some warn that Cato's projected rate-of-return will not be high enough to provide a sufficient Risk Premium . Cato on foreign policy and civil liberties In recent years, Cato's non-interventionist foreign policy views, and strong support for civil liberties, have frequently led them to criticize those in power, Republican and Democrat. Cato scholars opposed President George H. W. Bush 's 1991 Gulf War operations, President Clinton's interventions in Haiti and Kosovo, and President George W. Bush 's 2003 Invasion Of Iraq . On the other hand, Cato scholars supported the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6662 They have been similarly critical of recent perceived infringements upon American's civil liberties. Cato scholars sharply criticized then-Attorney General Janet Reno 's 1993 Raid Of The Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. More recently, they have opposed the USA Patriot Act , the imprisonment of so-called Unlawful Enemy Combatant s like José Padilla , and the second Bush Administration's aggressive assertions of unilateral executive authority. Cato on other domestic issues Cato has published strong criticisms of the 1998 settlement that many U.S. states signed with the policies, Cato scholars have argued for immigrant entrance into the U.S. work force.http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2904 The Cato Institute also published Policy Analysis #487, which proposed amending the United States Constitution to implement a Balanced Budget Veto Amendment . This would, according to the Institute, act as a self-enforcing mechanism to reduce Deficit Spending by the U.S. government. In 2003 Cato filed an Amicus Brief in support of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence V. Texas , which struck down the few remaining state laws that made private, non-commercial homosexual relations between consenting adults illegal. Cato cited the 14th Amendment, among other things, as the source of their support for the ruling. Domestically, Cato scholars have been sharp critics of current U.S. drug policyhttp://www.cato.org/current/drug-war/index.html, and the perceived growing militarization of U.S. police departments.http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476 Cato on environmental policy The Cato Institute holds regular briefings on Global Warming with Global Warming Skeptic s as panelists. In December 2003, panelists included Patrick Michaels , Robert Balling and John Christy ; Balling and Christy have since made statements indicating that global warming is, in fact, related at least some degree to anthropogenic activity. 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 (i.e., 50 years or so), even with full compliance. {Link without Title} 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 "Enviro Trends: Poor to Bear Brunt of Climate Change. 3 May 2003, as cited by ExxonSecrets.org" Cato's relationship with the mainstream scientific community has at times been strained. For example, while experts such as Sarah Darby (Oxford), Jon Samet (Johns Hopkins) and Bill Field (University of Iowa) have demonstrated that residential Radon exposure is a major public health risk, then-Cato adjunct fellow Steven Milloy re-published articles by Michael Fumento dismissing this research and mounting personal attacks on the Scientists . Neither Milloy nor Fumento are scientists. {Link without Title} FUNDING The Cato Institute is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The institute performs no contract research and does not accept government funding. For revenue, the institute is largely dependent on private contributions. According to its annual report, the Cato Institute had 2006 expenses of $19.4 million and revenue of $20.4 million.http://www.cato.org/about/reports/annual_report_2006.pdf The report notes that 74% of Cato's income that year came from individual contributions, 15% from foundations, 3% from corporations, and 8% from "program and other income" (e.g., publication sales, program fees). Foundation support The Cato Institute has been supported by:
Corporate support Like most Think Tanks , Cato receives support from a variety of corporations, but corporations are a relatively minor source of support for the Institute. In 2006, for example, corporate donations accounted for only three percent of its budget. According to Cato supporters, the relative paucity of corporate funding has allowed the Institute to strike an independent stance in its policy research. In 2004, the Institute angered the U.S. pharmaceutical industry by publishing a paper arguing in favor of "drug re-importation." http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2305 A 2006 study attacked the as a give-away to corporate interests. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4041 Still, some critics have accused Cato of being too tied to corporate funders, especially in the 1990s. Critical sources report that Cato received funding from newspapers reported that in the late 1990s Cato received financial contributions from the American International Group , "an insurance and financial services company whose business includes managing U.S. retirement plans" as Social Security reform emerged as a more prominent issue. Between 1998 and 2004 the Cato Institute received $90,000 of its funding from ExxonMobil — about a tenth of a percent of the organization's budget over that period. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21 ASSOCIATES IN THE NEWS
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 prize winners
NOTABLE ASSOCIATES (center) talk with guest speaker Walter E. Williams (right) at the 15th Annual Benefactor Summit (2003)]] Policy scholars
Adjunct scholars
Fellows
Board of directors As of January 2007:
FORMER STAFF AND FACULTY
REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|