The Heritage Foundation (sometimes referred to simply as Heritage) is an activist American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.
The Heritage Foundation has had significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and has been ranked among the most influential public policy organizations in the United States. Its sister organization Heritage Action, founded in 2010, is an influential activist force in conservative and Republican politics.
History and major initiatives
Early years
The Heritage Foundation was founded on February 16, 1973 during the Nixon administration 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 a version of the Brookings Institution that advanced conservative activism. Coors was the Heritage Foundation's primary funding source in its early years. Weyrich was the foundation's first president. Later, under Weyrich's successor, Frank J. Walton, the Heritage Foundation began using direct mail fundraising and its annual income grew to $1 million per year in 1976. By 1981, the annual budget grew to $5.3 million.
The Heritage Foundation advocated for pro-business policies, anti-communism, and neoconservatism in its early years, but distinguished itself from the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) by also advocating for the Christian right. But throughout the 1970s, the Heritage Foundation remained small relative to Brookings and AEI.
Reagan administration
In January 1981, the Heritage Foundation published Mandate for Leadership, a comprehensive report aimed at reducing the size of the federal government, providing public policy guidance to the incoming Reagan administration, including over 2,000 specific policy 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. Ronald Reagan liked the ideas so much that he gave a copy to each member of his cabinet to review. Approximately 60% of the 2,000 proposals were implemented or initiated by the end of Reagan's first year in office. Reagan later said that the Heritage Foundation was a "vital force" in the successes during his presidency.
The Heritage Foundation was influential in developing and advancing of the Reagan Doctrine, a key Reagan administration foreign policy initiative under which the U.S. began providing military and other support to anti-communist resistance movements fighting Soviet-aligned governments in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua, and other nations during the final years of the Cold War.
The Heritage Foundation also supported the development of a new ballistic missile defense systems for the United States. In 1983, Reagan made the development of this new defense system, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, as his top defense priority.
By mid-decade, the Heritage Foundation began emerging as a key organization in the national conservative movement, publishing influential reports on a broad range of policy issues by emerging and prominent conservative thought leaders. In 1986, in recognition of the Heritage Foundation's fast emerging influence, Time magazine labeled the Heritage Foundation "the foremost of the new breed of advocacy tanks". During the Reagan and subsequent George H. W. Bush administrations, the Heritage Foundation served as the brain trust for foreign policy to both administrations.
George H. W. Bush administration
The Heritage Foundation remained an influential voice on domestic and foreign policy issues during President George H. W. Bush's administration. In 1990 and 1991, the foundation was a leading proponent of Operation Desert Storm designed to liberate Kuwait following Saddam Hussein's August 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. According to Baltimore Sun Washington bureau chief Frank Starr, 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 reform proposals the Heritage Foundation proposed in Mandate for Leadership III and included them in its 1990 budget proposal.