A History of Achievements
Since 1973, The Heritage Foundation has been working to advance the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. We coordinate our efforts with members of Congress, congressional staffers, executive branch policymakers, the media and the academic and public policy communities to advance these principles.
Our hard work has paid off time and again. Since our founding, we have seen substantial gains for the conservative agenda even as The Heritage Foundation has swelled to include 280,000 members. In fact, most of our work would not have been possible if it weren’t for your support.
The following timeline lists just some of the successes we’ve had over more than three decades:
1973 The Heritage Foundation opens its doors
The Heritage Foundation is founded on February 16, 1973 with backing from Joseph Coors, Richard Scaife and Edward Noble in order to deliver compelling and persuasive research to Congress providing facts, data, and sound arguments on behalf of conservative principles.
1977 Building the conservative movement
Ed Feulner becomes president and sets up a new senior management staff. He also creates the Resource Bank to take on the liberal establishment and forge a national network of conservative policy groups and experts. Over the years, the Resource Bank grows to encompass more than 2,200 policy experts and 475 policy groups in the U.S. and other countries.
1980 Mandate for Leadership
Heritage’s 1,077-page public policy blueprint, Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration, becomes the policy bible of the newly elected Reagan administration on everything from taxes and regulation to crime and national defense. The new president gives copies to every member of his Cabinet at their first meeting. The upshot: Nearly two-thirds of the 2,000 recommendations contained in Mandate were adopted by the Reagan administration.
1981 A tax cut revolution
Heritage’s Mandate for Leadership called for “An across-the-board reduction in marginal personal income tax rates in each bracket of about 10 percent in 1981, with similar rate reductions in 1982 and 1983.” The Reagan administration not only followed Mandate’s lead, but it appointed Heritage’s Norman Ture, the Mandate author who penned the chapter on tax policy, as treasury secretary for tax and economic affairs—a new position suggested by Mandate. The tax cut that eventually passed—a marginal rate reduction of 25 percent over three years—wiped out America’s economic “malaise,” producing the biggest economic boom in U.S. history.
1982 Protecting America
Heritage publishes the first comprehensive, detailed study outlining a missile defense system to defend the Unites States from nuclear missile attack. The landmark study, known as “High Frontier,” is presented to President Reagan by Heritage President Ed Feulner in a White House meeting. Six months later, Reagan makes his historic speech calling for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to protect America.
1983 Building a global presence
In conjunction with its 10th anniversary, Heritage formally dedicates its new eight-story headquarters on Capitol Hill. It also establishes the Asian Studies Center to serve as a permanent and dynamic research program aimed at building stronger relations between the United States and Asian–Pacific countries. Nine years later, Heritage opens an office in Moscow.
1985 Winning the Cold War
Within the first 10 minutes of the Reagan–Gorbachev Geneva summit, Gorbachev criticizes a briefing book prepared by Heritage. President Reagan responds, “I read it and liked it.” Later, Gorbachev complained to the Supreme Soviet that Reagan stood fast on SDI because of the “mandate” from America’s extreme right wing, “represented by their ideological headquarters, the Heritage Foundation.”
1987 Rolling back the liberal welfare state
Heritage’s public policy plan Out of the Poverty Trap: A Conservative Strategy for Welfare Reform provides a detailed outline for welfare reform. This helped set the stage for the 1996 reforms that changed the entitlement mentality in America, moving thousands off the dole and toward personal responsibility.
1988 Educating conservative candidates
Heritage releases the first edition of Issues: The Candidate’s Briefing Book. This comprehensive guide to domestic, foreign, and defense policy issues helps conservative candidates frame the debate. In 2000, House Majority Leader Dick Armey says, “If candidates read nothing else, they should read Issues…. No candidate should run without it.”
1989 Keeping Reagan’s legacy
The Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy is established at Heritage and former attorney general Edwin Meese is named Distinguished Fellow. This is the only chair named for Reagan that he formally approved.
1990 Supporting freedom
Ronald Reagan addresses Heritage’s Annual Board Meeting and Leadership Conference and says, “You [were] an invaluable resource on key issues such as tax cuts, reducing government spending, SDI, supporting freedom in Grenada, Nicaragua, Eastern Europe—wherever I needed Heritage, you were there.”
1992 Fighting for health care reform
The Heritage Consumer Choice Health Plan becomes the leading free-market alternative to President Clinton’s government-oriented proposal. Nine years later, Heritage establishes the Center for Health Policy Studies to fight for reforms based on consumer choice.
1994 The Contract With America
Heritage provides the intellectual ammunition to conservatives during the 1994 elections on issues such as welfare reform, tax cuts, and congressional reform. This leads to historic election victories for conservatives, and Heritage ideas become a major part of “The Contract With America.”
1995 Educating members of Congress
Heritage hosts a New Member Conference to educate the freshman class. Fifty-six Members of Congress attend while Harvard University’s competing conference is canceled due to lack of interest. On the first day of the new session, the House reforms 15 rules: 13 of these rule reforms had been recommended by Heritage. Over the 100 days of the new Congress, Heritage analysts testify over 100 times.
Getting our message to cyberspace
Heritage establishes a Web presence with heritage.org and launches the tremendously popular townhall.com. Conservative news, information, and commentary are now directly accessible to millions of Americans.
1996 Restoring the role of religion
Heritage publicizes its most popular paper ever, “Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability,” which summarizes the scientific data showing that the practice of religion has a dramatic impact on reducing teenage pregnancy, drug use, suicide rates, illegitimacy, and other pathologies. The paper is reported in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the country and ignites a call for restoring respect for religion in America. Seven years later, Heritage establishes the Center for Religion and Civil Society.
1996 Reforming welfare
Welfare reform is passed, based on a plan devised by Heritage experts. Liberals predict it will throw millions into poverty and leave children “sleeping on grates.” Instead, more than five million individuals leave welfare and find work; child poverty drops; and black child poverty falls for the first time in 25 years, plunging to historic lows.
1997 Ending the liberal monopoly on government data
Heritage establishes the Center for Data Analysis to give congressional conservatives better analysis on tax and spending legislation in the fight for fundamental tax reform.
Promoting freedom through economic prosperity
The Wall Street Journal becomes co-publisher of Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom, first published in 1995. This annual ranking of nations measures economic freedom and prosperity, proving that more freedom leads to more prosperity.
Leadership for America
Heritage begins its two-year celebration marking its 25th anniversary. Conservative leaders such as Lady Thatcher, William F. Buckley and Justice Clarence Thomas speak at Heritage events around the nation.
1999 Influencing the media
With added support from the 25th anniversary campaign, Heritage inaugurates the Center for Media and Public Policy to provide media training for Heritage staff and offer courses in computer-assisted reporting to journalists. Mike Causey of The Washington Post says “The Heritage Foundation is second to none in its ability to deal with the media.”
2000 Defending the Constitution
Heritage establishes the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, chaired by Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Ed Meese. The Center promotes a greater appreciation for the role of the Constitution in modern American democracy.
Reforming education
Heritage releases a groundbreaking book, No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools, “asserting that better results can be achieved through high standards and expectations, reinforced by a culture of achievement. Following Heritage’s suggestion, CBS’s “60 Minutes” produces a season-premiere story about two of the schools profiled in No Excuses.
Forging a new administration
As President Bush prepares to take office, Heritage experts serve on advisory commissions in every major policy area. We also recommend hundreds of people for key positions in the administration. Several Heritage staff join the White House team, including Distinguished Fellow Elaine Chao, who becomes secretary of labor, and our Senior Fellow Kay James, who takes over at the Office of Personnel Management.
2001 Cutting taxes
White House officials rely on our Center for Data Analysis to produce sophisticated revenue projections. Our work is so reliable that when reporters seek information on the president’s tax plan from the White House, officials there refer the media to Heritage for details.
Heritage creates a Tax Cut Calculator for the Web site offering visitors a simple, instant way to check how Bush tax cut affects their taxes. The site proves so effective that the White House links to it, and so popular with the media and the public that an extra high-speed Internet line has to be installed.
2002 Defending America
During the first 30 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Heritage creates a Homeland Security Task Force and provides 250 newspaper and magazine interviews and 185 radio and television interviews. In January, the Office of Homeland Security and the Joint Chiefs of Staff review the task force’s comprehensive recommendations—two-thirds of which eventually are implemented.
Defeating a treaty that left America vulnerable.
After a twenty-year effort by Heritage in laying the legal, technical, and policy groundwork, President Bush repeals the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, thereby clearing the way for deployment of missile defenses.
2003 Building for the next generation
Heritage nearly doubles in size, thanks to a gift of an eight-story building adjacent to its headquarters and generous donations from our members for renovations. In addition to providing much-needed office space and a new 230-seat auditorium, the new building houses college interns who spend a semester at Heritage being introduced to the world of public policy.
2004 Getting our message to the American public
Heritage’s best-in-Washington communications and media team sets new records in arranging interviews for Heritage policy analysts in print, radio and television media, churning out commentaries that are printed in the nation’s most prestigious newspapers, and marketing conservative ideas to lawmakers and congressional staff. Heritage experts give an average of 6.5 radio and television interviews every working day.
2005 Responding rapidly and fighting government spending
Heritage took less than a week to produce “From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities” – a Marshall Plan for the Gulf Coast in response to Hurricane Katrina. White House officials and Congress quickly embraced many of its recommendations. And its “pork-for-relief” suggestion to divert funds earmarked for wasteful pork-barrel projects to gulf reconstruction projects quickly became a popular cause in the online “blogosphere” and among the mainstream media – with 1,400 newspaper articles citing it in two weeks.
2007 Launching Leadership for America campaign
This ten-year campaign is our boldest initiative since Heritage’s founding in 1973. Its ultimate goal is to restore our nation’s core principles to their rightful place at the heart of American society. We will recall our nation to the First Principles of liberty; restore the primary institutions of civil society; expand economic opportunity and prosperity for all Americans; and ensure America’s national security and its respect as a world leader. Over the next ten years, we will continue to demonstrate the strength of our ideas and the importance of our work—and that Heritage provides real Leadership for America.
Upholding the rule of law
Heritage was at the center of the debate over the Senate’s misguided amnesty bill, officially and inaccurately titled the “Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007.” Our experts exposed the secret bill offered a common-sense counterproposal: enforce the rule of law, improve border security, strengthen citizenship and reject amnesty for illegal immigrants. “Thank goodness they did make it public,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Our experts played an active role in the debate by offering timely and thorough research to members of Congress; building coalitions among other groups in Washington who shared our concerns; highlighting the bill’s flaws; and explaining through television, radio, newspapers and the Internet why the bill was such a bad deal for Americans.
Since 1973, The Heritage Foundation has been working to advance the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. We coordinate our efforts with members of Congress, congressional staffers, executive branch policymakers, the media and the academic and public policy communities to advance these principles.
Our hard work has paid off time and again. Since our founding, we have seen substantial gains for the conservative agenda even as The Heritage Foundation has swelled to include 280,000 members. In fact, most of our work would not have been possible if it weren’t for your support.
The following timeline lists just some of the successes we’ve had over more than three decades:
1973 The Heritage Foundation opens its doors
The Heritage Foundation is founded on February 16, 1973 with backing from Joseph Coors, Richard Scaife and Edward Noble in order to deliver compelling and persuasive research to Congress providing facts, data, and sound arguments on behalf of conservative principles.
1977 Building the conservative movement
Ed Feulner becomes president and sets up a new senior management staff. He also creates the Resource Bank to take on the liberal establishment and forge a national network of conservative policy groups and experts. Over the years, the Resource Bank grows to encompass more than 2,200 policy experts and 475 policy groups in the U.S. and other countries.
1980 Mandate for Leadership
Heritage’s 1,077-page public policy blueprint, Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration, becomes the policy bible of the newly elected Reagan administration on everything from taxes and regulation to crime and national defense. The new president gives copies to every member of his Cabinet at their first meeting. The upshot: Nearly two-thirds of the 2,000 recommendations contained in Mandate were adopted by the Reagan administration.
1981 A tax cut revolution
Heritage’s Mandate for Leadership called for “An across-the-board reduction in marginal personal income tax rates in each bracket of about 10 percent in 1981, with similar rate reductions in 1982 and 1983.” The Reagan administration not only followed Mandate’s lead, but it appointed Heritage’s Norman Ture, the Mandate author who penned the chapter on tax policy, as treasury secretary for tax and economic affairs—a new position suggested by Mandate. The tax cut that eventually passed—a marginal rate reduction of 25 percent over three years—wiped out America’s economic “malaise,” producing the biggest economic boom in U.S. history.
1982 Protecting America
Heritage publishes the first comprehensive, detailed study outlining a missile defense system to defend the Unites States from nuclear missile attack. The landmark study, known as “High Frontier,” is presented to President Reagan by Heritage President Ed Feulner in a White House meeting. Six months later, Reagan makes his historic speech calling for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to protect America.
1983 Building a global presence
In conjunction with its 10th anniversary, Heritage formally dedicates its new eight-story headquarters on Capitol Hill. It also establishes the Asian Studies Center to serve as a permanent and dynamic research program aimed at building stronger relations between the United States and Asian–Pacific countries. Nine years later, Heritage opens an office in Moscow.
1985 Winning the Cold War
Within the first 10 minutes of the Reagan–Gorbachev Geneva summit, Gorbachev criticizes a briefing book prepared by Heritage. President Reagan responds, “I read it and liked it.” Later, Gorbachev complained to the Supreme Soviet that Reagan stood fast on SDI because of the “mandate” from America’s extreme right wing, “represented by their ideological headquarters, the Heritage Foundation.”
1987 Rolling back the liberal welfare state
Heritage’s public policy plan Out of the Poverty Trap: A Conservative Strategy for Welfare Reform provides a detailed outline for welfare reform. This helped set the stage for the 1996 reforms that changed the entitlement mentality in America, moving thousands off the dole and toward personal responsibility.
1988 Educating conservative candidates
Heritage releases the first edition of Issues: The Candidate’s Briefing Book. This comprehensive guide to domestic, foreign, and defense policy issues helps conservative candidates frame the debate. In 2000, House Majority Leader Dick Armey says, “If candidates read nothing else, they should read Issues…. No candidate should run without it.”
1989 Keeping Reagan’s legacy
The Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy is established at Heritage and former attorney general Edwin Meese is named Distinguished Fellow. This is the only chair named for Reagan that he formally approved.
1990 Supporting freedom
Ronald Reagan addresses Heritage’s Annual Board Meeting and Leadership Conference and says, “You [were] an invaluable resource on key issues such as tax cuts, reducing government spending, SDI, supporting freedom in Grenada, Nicaragua, Eastern Europe—wherever I needed Heritage, you were there.”
1992 Fighting for health care reform
The Heritage Consumer Choice Health Plan becomes the leading free-market alternative to President Clinton’s government-oriented proposal. Nine years later, Heritage establishes the Center for Health Policy Studies to fight for reforms based on consumer choice.
1994 The Contract With America
Heritage provides the intellectual ammunition to conservatives during the 1994 elections on issues such as welfare reform, tax cuts, and congressional reform. This leads to historic election victories for conservatives, and Heritage ideas become a major part of “The Contract With America.”
1995 Educating members of Congress
Heritage hosts a New Member Conference to educate the freshman class. Fifty-six Members of Congress attend while Harvard University’s competing conference is canceled due to lack of interest. On the first day of the new session, the House reforms 15 rules: 13 of these rule reforms had been recommended by Heritage. Over the 100 days of the new Congress, Heritage analysts testify over 100 times.
Getting our message to cyberspace
Heritage establishes a Web presence with heritage.org and launches the tremendously popular townhall.com. Conservative news, information, and commentary are now directly accessible to millions of Americans.
1996 Restoring the role of religion
Heritage publicizes its most popular paper ever, “Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability,” which summarizes the scientific data showing that the practice of religion has a dramatic impact on reducing teenage pregnancy, drug use, suicide rates, illegitimacy, and other pathologies. The paper is reported in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the country and ignites a call for restoring respect for religion in America. Seven years later, Heritage establishes the Center for Religion and Civil Society.
1996 Reforming welfare
Welfare reform is passed, based on a plan devised by Heritage experts. Liberals predict it will throw millions into poverty and leave children “sleeping on grates.” Instead, more than five million individuals leave welfare and find work; child poverty drops; and black child poverty falls for the first time in 25 years, plunging to historic lows.
1997 Ending the liberal monopoly on government data
Heritage establishes the Center for Data Analysis to give congressional conservatives better analysis on tax and spending legislation in the fight for fundamental tax reform.
Promoting freedom through economic prosperity
The Wall Street Journal becomes co-publisher of Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom, first published in 1995. This annual ranking of nations measures economic freedom and prosperity, proving that more freedom leads to more prosperity.
Leadership for America
Heritage begins its two-year celebration marking its 25th anniversary. Conservative leaders such as Lady Thatcher, William F. Buckley and Justice Clarence Thomas speak at Heritage events around the nation.
1999 Influencing the media
With added support from the 25th anniversary campaign, Heritage inaugurates the Center for Media and Public Policy to provide media training for Heritage staff and offer courses in computer-assisted reporting to journalists. Mike Causey of The Washington Post says “The Heritage Foundation is second to none in its ability to deal with the media.”
2000 Defending the Constitution
Heritage establishes the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, chaired by Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Ed Meese. The Center promotes a greater appreciation for the role of the Constitution in modern American democracy.
Reforming education
Heritage releases a groundbreaking book, No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools, “asserting that better results can be achieved through high standards and expectations, reinforced by a culture of achievement. Following Heritage’s suggestion, CBS’s “60 Minutes” produces a season-premiere story about two of the schools profiled in No Excuses.
Forging a new administration
As President Bush prepares to take office, Heritage experts serve on advisory commissions in every major policy area. We also recommend hundreds of people for key positions in the administration. Several Heritage staff join the White House team, including Distinguished Fellow Elaine Chao, who becomes secretary of labor, and our Senior Fellow Kay James, who takes over at the Office of Personnel Management.
2001 Cutting taxes
White House officials rely on our Center for Data Analysis to produce sophisticated revenue projections. Our work is so reliable that when reporters seek information on the president’s tax plan from the White House, officials there refer the media to Heritage for details.
Heritage creates a Tax Cut Calculator for the Web site offering visitors a simple, instant way to check how Bush tax cut affects their taxes. The site proves so effective that the White House links to it, and so popular with the media and the public that an extra high-speed Internet line has to be installed.
2002 Defending America
During the first 30 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Heritage creates a Homeland Security Task Force and provides 250 newspaper and magazine interviews and 185 radio and television interviews. In January, the Office of Homeland Security and the Joint Chiefs of Staff review the task force’s comprehensive recommendations—two-thirds of which eventually are implemented.
Defeating a treaty that left America vulnerable.
After a twenty-year effort by Heritage in laying the legal, technical, and policy groundwork, President Bush repeals the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, thereby clearing the way for deployment of missile defenses.
2003 Building for the next generation
Heritage nearly doubles in size, thanks to a gift of an eight-story building adjacent to its headquarters and generous donations from our members for renovations. In addition to providing much-needed office space and a new 230-seat auditorium, the new building houses college interns who spend a semester at Heritage being introduced to the world of public policy.
2004 Getting our message to the American public
Heritage’s best-in-Washington communications and media team sets new records in arranging interviews for Heritage policy analysts in print, radio and television media, churning out commentaries that are printed in the nation’s most prestigious newspapers, and marketing conservative ideas to lawmakers and congressional staff. Heritage experts give an average of 6.5 radio and television interviews every working day.
2005 Responding rapidly and fighting government spending
Heritage took less than a week to produce “From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities” – a Marshall Plan for the Gulf Coast in response to Hurricane Katrina. White House officials and Congress quickly embraced many of its recommendations. And its “pork-for-relief” suggestion to divert funds earmarked for wasteful pork-barrel projects to gulf reconstruction projects quickly became a popular cause in the online “blogosphere” and among the mainstream media – with 1,400 newspaper articles citing it in two weeks.
2007 Launching Leadership for America campaign
This ten-year campaign is our boldest initiative since Heritage’s founding in 1973. Its ultimate goal is to restore our nation’s core principles to their rightful place at the heart of American society. We will recall our nation to the First Principles of liberty; restore the primary institutions of civil society; expand economic opportunity and prosperity for all Americans; and ensure America’s national security and its respect as a world leader. Over the next ten years, we will continue to demonstrate the strength of our ideas and the importance of our work—and that Heritage provides real Leadership for America.
Upholding the rule of law
Heritage was at the center of the debate over the Senate’s misguided amnesty bill, officially and inaccurately titled the “Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007.” Our experts exposed the secret bill offered a common-sense counterproposal: enforce the rule of law, improve border security, strengthen citizenship and reject amnesty for illegal immigrants. “Thank goodness they did make it public,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Our experts played an active role in the debate by offering timely and thorough research to members of Congress; building coalitions among other groups in Washington who shared our concerns; highlighting the bill’s flaws; and explaining through television, radio, newspapers and the Internet why the bill was such a bad deal for Americans.
