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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 markets, and peace" by seeking greater involvement of the "lay public in questions of public policy and the role of government."

Contents 1 History 2 Publications 3 Principles 3.1 Cato's strained relationship with conservatism 3.2 Cato on Social Security 3.3 Cato on foreign policy and civil liberties 3.4 Cato on other domestic issues 3.5 Cato on environmental policy 4 Funding 4.1 Foundation support 4.2 Corporate support 5 Associates in the news 6 Milton Friedman Prize 6.1 Past prize winners 7 Notable associates 7.1 Policy scholars 7.2 Adjunct scholars 7.3 Fellows 7.4 Board of directors 8 Former staff and faculty 9 References 10 External links

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.^[1]

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.^[2]

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.

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,^[3] reforming illegal-drug policies,^[4] eliminating corporate welfare and trade barriers,^[5] diminishing federal government involvement in the marketplace^[6] and in local and state issues,^[7] enhanced school choice,^[8] and abolishing government-enforced discrimination along with restrictions on discrimination by private parties.^[9]

In the years immediately following the Republican Revolution, the Cato Institute was often seen as a standard-bearer of the American conservative movement. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who reshaped and rejuvenated the Republican Party and were key contributors to the late 20th century conservative movement, were heavily influenced by libertarian ideals.

However, Cato 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,"^[10] and these tensions have become increasingly evident in recent years, as the Institute has beceome sharply critical of Republican standard bearers. ^[11]The growing division may be attributable to Republican officeholders' growing support for state intervention in the economy and society, increased government spending, and neo-conservative foreign policy.

Cato scholars have also been strongly critical of the expansion of executive power under the Bush administration^[12] and the Iraq War.^[13] In 2006 and 2007, Cato published two books criticizing the Republican party for abandoning the limited-government ideals that swept them into power in 1994. ^{[14] [15]} For their part, only a minority of Republican congressmen supported President George W. Bush’s 2005 proposals to partially privatize Social Security, an idea strongly backed by Cato. And in the 109th Congress, President Bush's immigration plan—which was based on a proposal by Cato scholar Dan Griswold ^[16]—went down to defeat largely due to the opposition of conservative Republicans in Congress. ^[17]

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 the fact that its proposals would give citizens a choice of whether or not to participate in the program. Like other organizations supporting personal accounts, Cato scholars have avoided the term "privatization" as a description of its policies. ^[18]

Cato's Social Security proposal 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. 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 they chose. 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 present retirees. As the ratio of workers to retirees declines, workers will bear an increasing 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 retirement to leave the assets in his personal account to his children or other heirs.

Critics^{[attribution needed]} have charged that Cato's plan assumes that the increased returns projected from private accounts are worth the increased risks of participation in the stock market. Some^{[attribution needed]} warn that Cato's projected rate of return on equity (in which individual accounts would be invested) will not be high enough to provide a sufficient risk premium. Others note that investing Social Security funds in the private sector would result in the U.S. government being the largest shareholder in most public corporations.

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 decision to fight the first Gulf War, President Clinton's interventions in Haiti and Kosovo, and President George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq. They have been similarly critical of recent infringements on civil liberties. Cato scholars sharply criticized 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 combatants like José Padilla, and the Bush administration's aggressive assertions of unilateral executive authority.

Cato has published strong criticisms of the 1998 settlement that many U.S. states signed with the tobacco industry.^[19] Among other laissez-faire policies, Cato scholars have argued for easier access for immigrants to enter the U.S. work force.^[20]

The Cato Institute also published Policy Analysis #487, which proposed amending the United States Constitution to implement a Balanced Budget Veto Amendment, which would act, according to the Institute, 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.

Domestically, Cato scholars have been sharp critics of current U.S. drug policy^[21] and the growing militarization of U.S. police departments.^[22]

The Cato Institute holds regular briefings on global warming with renowned global warming skeptics as panelists. In December 2003, panelists included Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and John Christy, all of whom disagree with the scientific consensus on the issue of climate change; 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 of 50 years or so, even with full compliance.^[23]

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^[24]

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 republished articles by Michael Fumento dismissing this research and mounting personal attacks on the scientists; neither Milloy nor Fumento are scientists. [1]

The Cato Institute is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization under the federal Internal Revenue Code. The institute performs no contract research and does not accept government funding. For revenue, the institute is largely dependent on contributions.

According to its 2005 annual report, the Cato Institute had 2005 expenses of $17.2 million and revenue of $22.4 million.^[25] The report notes that 83% of Cato's income that year came from individual contributions, 11% from foundations, 2% from corporations, and 4% from "programs and other income" (e.g., publication sales, program fees).

The Cato Institute has been supported by:

• Castle Rock Foundation (Formerly Coors Foundation)
• Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
• Earhart Foundation
• JM Foundation
• John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
• Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)

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 2005, for example, corporate donations accounted for only two percent of its budget.

The relative paucity of corporate funding may be one reason the Institute has struck an independent stance in its policy research. In 2004, the Institute angered the pharmaceutical industry by published a paper arguing in favor of "drug re-importation." ^[26] A 2006 study attacked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a law that is widely viewed as benefitting large media companies at the expense of ordinary consumers. ^[27] In 2005, Cato scholar Jerry Taylor teamed up with Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club to attack the Republican Energy Bill as a give-away to corporate interests. ^[28] Cato has published numerous studies criticizing what it calls "corporate welfare," the practice of funneling taxpayer money to politically connected corporate interests. ^{[29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]}

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 Phillip Morris and other tobacco companies in the 1990s, and that at one point Rupert Murdoch served on the boards of directors of Cato and Phillip Morris. ^[36] The Knight Ridder 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 has become 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. ^[37]

• Several Cato Institute affiliated 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 Gonzales v. Raich 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 December 2005, Doug Bandow, a Cato fellow, admitted taking money from lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns for the Copley News Service favorable to Abramoff clients. The columns did not, however, deviate from Bandow's own views. Copley suspended his column. Bandow resigned from Cato on December 15.
• 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 and oil companies while writing editorial pieces favorable to them, Milloy's name was removed from the list of Cato adjunct scholars.
• Adjunct scholar Robert L. Bradley, Jr was a speechwriter for former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay.

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.

• Peter Thomas Bauer (2002)
• Hernando de Soto (2004)
• Mart Laar (2006)

• David Boaz, Executive Vice President
• Edward H. Crane, President and CEO
• Jagadeesh Gokhale, Senior Fellow
• Daniel T. Griswold
• Andrey Illarionov
• William A. Niskanen, Chairman
• Tom G. Palmer, Senior Fellow, Director of Cato University
• Roger Pilon, Vice President for Legal Affairs
• José Piñera, Co-chairman, Project on Social Security Choice
• Alan Reynolds, Senior Fellow
• Jerry Taylor. Senior Fellow
• Ian Vásquez, Director of the Project on Global Economic Liberty
• Will Wilkinson, Policy Analyst
• John Samples, Director, Center for Representative Government

• Donald J. Boudreaux
• Robert L. Bradley, Jr
• Tyler Cowen
• Michael Cox (Academic)
• Richard Epstein
• Michael Gough
• Tibor Machan
• Randal O'Toole
• Vernon L. Smith
• Thomas Szasz

• Randy E. Barnett
• James Bovard
• James M. Buchanan
• Steve H. Hanke
• F. A. Hayek
• Andrei Illarionov
• Penn Jillette
• David Kopel
• Johan Norberg
• P. J. O'Rourke
• Jim Powell
• Teller

As of January 2007:

• K. Tucker Andersen, Senior consultant, Cumberland Associates LLC
• Frank Bond, Chairman, The Foundation Group
• Edward H. Crane, President, Cato Institute
• Richard Dennis, President, Dennis Trading Group
• Ethelmae C. Humphreys, Chair, Tamko Roofing Products, Inc.
• David H. Koch, Executive vice-president, Koch Industries, Inc.
• John C. Malone, Chairman, Liberty Media Corporation
• William A. Niskanen, Chairman, Cato Institute
• David H. Padden, President, Padden and Company
• Lewis E. Randall, Board member, E*Trade Financial
• Howard Rich, President, U.S. Term Limits
• Frederick W. Smith, Chairman and CEO, FedEx Corporation
• Donald G. Smith, President, Donald Smith & Co.
• Jeffrey S. Yass, Managing Director, Susquehana International Group, LLP
• Fred Young, former owner, Young Radiator Company

• Radley Balko, former Policy Analyst
• Doug Bandow, former Senior Fellow
• Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr. (Director of Technology Policy), currently Vice President for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Dan Greenberg (Director of Communications), currently an Arkansas state legislator and thus a member of the Arkansas General Assembly
• Terry Kibbe (Director of Development), currently Vice President for Development at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Thomas P. Miller (Director of Health Policy Studies), currently a healthcare policy scholar for the American Enterprise Institute
• Steven Milloy (adjunct scholar), columnist for Fox News
• Solveig Singleton (Director of Information Studies), currently Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation [2]
• R.J. Smith (Director of Environmental Policy), currently Senior Fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research
• Julian Sanchez, currently contributing editor to Reason magazine.

• Cato's Official Web Site
• Center for Trade Policy Studies
• Cato's Project on Social Security Choice
• Cato Unbound, Cato's Online Monthly Magazine
• Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty
• Read Cato's Policy Analysis and Proposal of the Balanced Budget Veto Amendment
• Cato@Liberty blog
• Cato Institute at SourceWatch
• Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, "The Hot New Americans Get Hotter," Washington Post, November 26, 2002, p. A27.
• Mike Huben, "Criticisms of the CATO Institute," in "Critiques Of Libertarianism."
• Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), CATO Study Confirms Troops on the Border as the Only Workable Means of Preserving U.S. Sovereignty (response to a Cato study proposing "North American integration", i.e., turning the U.S., Mexico, and Canada into a superstate like the EU)
• Lew Rockwel's Editorial on the Bandow/Abramoff controversy
• Dogmatic Libertarians: Over the edge.
• ExxonSecrets.org Fact Sheet on Cato.
• The Cato Institute or Anarchism seen through the Multinationals’ Eyes Voltaire Network
• Sourcewatch page on the Cato Institute
• "At Conservative Forum on Bush, Everybody's a Critic"
• "Libertarian Thoughts"
• David Boaz, Cato's Executive Vice President In a Debate on Freedom