Creative Destruction

Back when I had money I gave a bunch of it to AEI, Heritage, and Cato, buying “long-term” memberships, in the hope that by the time these memberships expired I would have money again. AEI’s membership expired this year and they came calling for me to re-up. While I didn’t reach my goal of having earned more money by the time my membership expired, I still figure if they continue to deserve my support, I will continue to support them in whatever small way I can continue to afford. AEI and Heritage, however, no longer meet my criteria for support. I had to tell the nice man from AEI that he would get no money from me, because they supported the bailout. (Now that I live in NYC I also signed up for a nice cheap Manhattan Institute membership about a month ago.)

For those of you keeping score, AEI and Heritage were actively in support of a large government intervention in the economy. The Manhattan Institute and Cato were not. But AEI is by far the most active and influential market-oriented think tank on this matter, so their support was crucial in shaping events and contributing to the (mostly) death of limited government and market ideas. The Manhattan Institute had only one expert on economic affairs active during the period I examined. AEI had seven. I believe that Heritage has, by far, the largest operating budget of any of these think tanks ($39 million as of 2006). That is more than three times as large as the Manhattan Institute’s $12 million annual budget.

via Only Mostly Dead « Jay P. Greene’s Blog.