Prominent Conservative Think Tanks

The term “think tank” seems to have arisen in the 1950s, but there were organizations of that type even back in the 19th century.  Many were established to address the problems of war (not successfully I’ve noticed), and others social, environmental and education policy.

The three most-cited conservative think tanks are

the Heritage Foundation, fifth most influential think tank in America.

the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the seventh most influential think tank in America.

the American Enterprise Institute, the eighth most influential think tank in America.

One can only conclude from 5th, 8th and 7th being conservative, that 1-4, 6, 9 and 10 are liberal think tanks and reporters would be quoting them more often. But this list is for my own convenience so when I read quotes, I’ll know whose bias is what.

Other conservative think tanks include the following:

Cato Institute
Hoover Institution
Manhattan Institute
Lexington Institute
Project for the New American Century (according to Wikipedia, is extinct, 2006)
Center for Security Policy
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Center for Immigration Studies
Claremont Institute
Hudson Institute
http://www.ehow.com/list_5553767_list-conservative-think-tanks.html

About Seven Revolutions

There's an interesting report available on-line called the Seven Revolutions, or 7 revs for short. Global Strategy Institute - About Seven Revolutions
It is a project led by the Global Strategy Institute at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to identify and analyze the key policy challenges that policymakers, business figures, and other leaders will face out to the year 2025. It is an effort to promote strategic thinking on the long-term trends that too few leaders take the time to consider. Contributors came from seven universities.

"In exploring the world of 2025, we have identified seven areas of change we expect to be most “revolutionary”:

1.Population
2.Resource management and environmental stewardship
3.Technological innovation and diffusion
4.The development and dissemination of information and knowledge
5.Economic integration
6.The nature and mode of conflict
7.The challenge of governance"

The publication of interest to educators (and the ordinary American who has to pay for this) is Educating Globally Competent Citizens; a Toolkit for Teaching Seven Revolutions

Within these "seven revolutionary areas of change" the toolkit suggests 8 subareas of knowledge, 7 subareas of skills, and 7 subareas of attitudes which university students need to be globally aware and change agents. Interesting that none of 22 levels include any expertise in one's own history, culture or language as a goal. The result is that college graduates ideally would be able "describe how one's own culture and history affect one's world view and expections," without any competancy in American history or culture, and "speak a 2nd language," but possibly be tongue tied and illiterate in English.

But where would we be without Think Tanks telling us to look ahead and ignore the past? My own children graduated in the mid-1980s, and because memorizing facts had long ago fallen from favor in public schools, they really didn't know which came first, The Korean War or The Vietnam War, because both were ancient history, and besides who was afraid of Communists? A little knowledge of our negotiated "peace" in 1952 sure would have been helpful in understanding what's going on today between north and south Korea, wouldn't it?

There are literally hundreds of video interviews within the boundaries of this research. I'm currently listening/watching one on "challenges that an aging population poses for developed countries" which could truly induce insomnia--at least in the elderly like me.

Can we trust government cost estimates?

No. They are never accurate. War. Peace. Highways. Social Security. CO2. Schools. Even pork (earmarks) aren't accurate. Never. Does the government ever "contain" costs. No. In today's Review and Outlook in the WSJ:

Start with Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that its first-year costs would be $238 million. Instead it hit more than $1 billion, and costs have kept climbing.

Thanks in part to expansions promoted by California's Henry Waxman, a principal author of the current House bill, Medicaid now costs 37 times more than it did when it was launched—after adjusting for inflation. Its current cost is $251 billion, up 24.7% or $50 billion in fiscal 2009 alone, and that's before the health-care bill covers millions of new beneficiaries.

When our legislators get to Washington, or Columbus, or Springfield, or Albany, or Sacramento, they forget it's real money taxed from real working people. To them it's funny money; Monopoly money. All they can do is pass legislation that will 1) fulfill the dreams of their party's philosophy, and 2) win voters back home, who understandably want some of their money back in exchange for sending that person to Congress. When the Congress person's term is up, they slip into "think-tanks" or become lobbyists, and continue on the government dole. Besides, you can't predict what's going to happen in the medical field. They estimated 11,000 renal patients for Medicare and got almost 400,000. The only thing that has come in below projections is the Bush-Kennedy drug plan. We know competition brings down prices, but Democrats don't want that. We know tax cuts induce investments which provide jobs, but Democrats don't want that. They want control and power.

Not much justice here, move along

Seems to be a think tank in the tank for Obama and various "progressive" (socialist, marxist) causes. Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.