EIN: 53-0218495

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Washington, DC 20036

The American Enterprise Institute, which was formed in 1943 and has in the past functioned as a more traditional think tank, has nonetheless been regarded as exercising significant influence in Washington circles.

Indeed, while acknowledging the generally important policy role of national think tanks, Ronald Reagan said of AEI that "[no think tank] has been more influential than the American Enterprise Institute."

Second on the list of grant recipients of the conservative foundations, AEI garnered close to $7 million over the 1992-1994 period to help finance its work in domestic and foreign policy affairs. Senior AEI staff include Robert Bork, Lynne Cheney, Charles Murray, Michael Novak, and approximately 30 other conservative public intellectuals and activists, many of whom are closely intertwined with the institutional apparatus of the right. William Baroody, Jr., AEI's president between 1978 and 1986, was explicit about AEI's intention to mobilize public and elite opinion and to shape major national policy issues, acknowledging that policy relevance depends to a great extent on effective techniques to relate ideology to constituency.

Judging from AEI's own statements, the institution has moved to assume a more aggressive and conservative public policy role, perhaps owing to conservative efforts to "defund" the think tank during the mid-1980s when some judged its research orientation to be too centrist. In 1986, the Olin and Smith Richardson foundations withdrew their support from AEI because of substantive disagreement with certain of its policies, causing Baroody to resign in the ensuing financial crisis. Today, AEI contrasts the sequestered nature of much university-based research with its own efforts to produce products of "immediate, practical utility" aimed at developing solutions to "real world" policy problems. In 1995, Demuth indicated in an interview with Insight magazine that the November 1994 elections moved national budget issues and regulatory reform higher on AEI's agenda, which has at any rate always had an emphasis on such domestic economic issues as the deregulation of business and the privatization of government services.

Like Baroody, DeMuth has understood the importance of cultivating relationships and building influence through the marketing of policy ideas and products. In the Institute's 1994 Annual Report, DeMuth stated, "We are delighted to be members in good standing of the Washington Establishment, called upon many times each day for Congressional testimony, media commentary, and advice on all manner of current policy issues." One year later, Demuth outlined how AEI scholars were actively seeking to translate the "broad, variegated animus against government into specific policies."

With a more secure funding base in the 1990s, AEI staff have actively sought to influence economic, regulatory, welfare, health, and other social policies, appearing on national media several times a day throughout the 1995-1996 period and organizing a variety of policy conferences and seminars, including five on Medicare reform, two focused on welfare policy ("Supplanting the Welfare State," and "Addressing Illegitimacy: Welfare Reform Options for Congress"), and others on tax reform, telecommunications deregulation and tort reform.

AEI staff and affiliated scholars also produced over 6OO articles and studies in 1995 and 1996, with titles like Fairness and Efficiency in the Flat Tax, The Frayed Social Contract- Why Social Security Is in Trouble and How It Can be Fixed, and Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Lberalism and American Decline. In 1995, it also published Dinesh D'Souza's racist tract, The End of Racism, the publication of which prompted the resignation of another AEI fellow, Robert Woodson, President of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise and himself an advisor to Newt Gingrich on neighborhood solutions to persistent poverty and other social problems.

Established in 1943 to develop "...the types of studies that would be useful in advancing business positions in public-policy debates." As the conservative family foundations and corporations began to pour money into the think-tank network, AEI's budget grew from $1 million in 1970 to over $10 million in 1981. The J. Howard Few Freedom Trust gave a total of $6 million between 1976 and 1981.

AEI provides a home and literary launching pad for arch-conservative scholars like Charles Murray ("The Bell Curve") and Dinesh D'Souza ("The End of Racism"), as well as former conservative office-holders like U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Dan Quayle's chief of staff William Kristol. Long-time AEI associates also include Robert Bork and now Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. AEI recipients of Bradley money routinely appear on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal [From "Downsizing the American Dream"].

Regularly receives large Bradley grants, including commitments for $2.38 million between 1990 and 1992 and $750,000 authorized in 1995.

May 19, 2018

AEI at SourceWatch.org

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=American_Enterprise_Institute

Bill Berkowitz
Media Transparency
February 25, 2007

American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against Iran

Despite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran

After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.

ThinkProgress.org
February 14, 2007

AEI: The Root of Bush’s Right-Wing Ideology

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/15/aei-bush-white-house/

Today [ 2/15/7], President Bush delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. AEI and the Bush administration are deeply entwined, something Bush admitted during his speech. “I admire AEI a lot,” Bush said. “After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration.”

ThinkProgress.org
February 2, 2007

AEI Letter Offers $10,000 Payments Only For Views Critical Of The IPCC Report

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/03/aei-letter/

On Friday, The Guardian reported that the American Enterprise Institute — which has received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil -- was offering to pay global warming skeptics to speak out in an effort to push back on the new IPCC climate change study. The IPCC report states that it is “very likely” that man-made greenhouse gases were the main cause of the Earth’s recent warming trend.

The article reported that one American scientist -- Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university -- turned down the offer citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. “You wouldn’t know if some of the other authors might say nothing’s going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it’s not our fault,” he said.

A copy of the AEI letter can be read HERE.

Ian Sample
The Guardian (GB)
February 1, 2007

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2004399,00.html

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Josh Marshall
Talking Points Memo
January 3, 2007

McCain and Lieberman to roll out "surge" proposal Friday at American Enterprise Institute

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011787.php

Yes to the Surge? Or No? Or, okay, escalation. Have an opinion on this one? As we mentioned a while back, Sens. McCain and Lieberman are heading across town to the American Enterprise Institute on Friday to roll out their 'surge' plan to send a few tens of thousands more troops to Baghdad to crush the Mahdi Army. Make no mistake: this event is the official 'surge' roll-out.

Thinkprogress.org
December 18, 2006

AEI, Advocating Two-Year U.S. Troop Surge In Iraq ‘Has The President’s Ear’

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/19/bush-aei-iraq/

Last night on CNN, reporter Suzanne Malveaux noted that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-wing think tank in Washington, DC, “has the president’s ear and is influencing his thinking” on Iraq. Last week Bush was briefed on a report by AEI scholar Frederick W. Kagan that calls for a troop surge in Iraq that “would probably last for anywhere from 18 to 24 months.”

Arthur Silber
Power of Narrative
November 17, 2006

Not to be Technical About It, but These People Are Crazy

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/11/not-to-be-technical-about-it-but-these.html

Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in Foreign Policy about what the neoconservatives should do now, and how they must "sharpen [their] game." Ahem.

If research into advanced dementia isn't your thing...here are the highlights, as offered by a Muravchik who is somewhat more, er, candid.

1. They hate us because we're beautiful. Our ideas helped beat the commies, and they'll help beat the jihadis! When you're as successful as we've been, people say mean things about you. And despite all the petty, ankle-biting nasties, our ranks are growing! I have to admit, though: there are days when I wish we weren't so close to perfect.

Michael Barbaro and Stephanie Strom
NY Times
September 7, 2006

Wal-Mart Finds an Ally in Conservatives

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/business/08walmart.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

As Wal-Mart Stores struggles to rebut criticism from unions and Democratic leaders, the company has discovered a reliable ally: prominent conservative research groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute.

Top policy analysts at these groups have written newspaper opinion pieces around the country supporting Wal-Mart, defended the company in interviews with reporters and testified on its behalf before government committees in Washington.

ThinkProgress.org
August 19, 2006

AEI Fellow After Meeting With Bush: President May Take Military Action Against Iran In 12-18 Months

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/20/gerecht-iran/

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of a small group of analysts who were asked to discuss their views on the Middle East with President Bush at a private lunch this week, said this morning on ABC’s This Week that the mid- to long-term fallout from Israel-Hezbollah conflict could be a good thing because it may prompt Bush to take military action against Iran.

truthdig.com
July 9, 2006

American Enterprise Institute's Claim: Soldiers Faking Post-Battle Stress

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20060710_faking_post_battle_stress/

The American Enterprise Institute suspects that U.S. soldiers are fabricating instances of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Blogger Respectful of Otters dismantles the claims...

Peter Baker
Washington Post
June 12, 2006

A Bush Aide's Blunt Words

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061201479.html

New Adviser (from American Enterprise Institute) Pulled No Punches in His Magazine Pieces

Bill Clinton is a "virtuoso deceiver" and Hillary Rodham Clinton a "true chameleon" guilty of "self-serving behavior, comparative radicalism, and dubious personal morality."

Al Gore is a "mad dog" known to "foam at the mouth." John McCain is given to "showboating." And Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan are all "feckless fools."

Says who? President Bush's new chief domestic policy adviser...few [advisors] in this day and age arrive with a more provocative paper trail than Karl Zinsmeister, who started his new job yesterday.

For a dozen years until his appointment, Zinsmeister held forth on all manner of issues and personalities as editor in chief of the American Enterprise Institute's magazine.

Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post
May 24, 2006

AEI 'Scholar' appointed top policy advisor to George W. Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402349.html

President Bush appointed a longtime scholar at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday to be his top domestic policy adviser, a post that has been vacant since February, when Claude A. Allen stepped down after being charged with stealing more than $5,000 in a phony refund scheme.

Karl Zinsmeister, who has worked the past 12 years as editor in chief of the American Enterprise magazine, is slated to assume his White House post June 12. At the institute, he focused on examining cultural issues, as well as social and economic trends. His columns for the magazine included pieces praising Wal-Mart's efficiency and extolling the role of religion in forming the glue that bonds communities.

Tom Barry
IRC Right Web
May 14, 2006

AEI Scholars Call for Iran Regime Change and Possible War

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rwnews/3255

As tensions with Iran increase, many of the neoconservatives who laid the ideological and strategic frameworks for the invasion of Iraq are calling on the Bush administration to prepare for a preventive war against Iran and to immediately implement a "regime change" strategy.

David S. Cloud and Jeff Gerth
NY Times
January 1, 2006

Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/02/politics/02propaganda.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=7aac55522b3865b9&hp&ex=1136264400&partner=homepage

...Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the American Enterprise Institute...said he had reviewed materials produced by the company [Lincoln Group] during two trips to Iraq within the past two years.

"I visited Camp Victory and looked over some of their proposals or products and commented on their ideas," Mr. Rubin said..."I am not nor have I been an employee of the Lincoln Group. I do not receive a salary from them."

He added: "Normally, when I travel, I receive reimbursement of expenses including a per diem and/or honorarium." But Mr. Rubin would not comment further on how much in such payments he may have received from Lincoln.

Mr. Rubin was quoted last month in The New York Times about Lincoln's work for the Pentagon placing articles in Iraqi publications: "I'm not surprised this goes on," he said, without disclosing his work for Lincoln. "Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs."

David Corn
The Nation
November 20, 2005

Cheney's White Flag

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=38685

"No Q and A." That's what Chris DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, said to me on the elevator at his think tank on Monday morning. I knew what he meant. Dick Cheney was coming to AEI, the prowar, neocon headquarters, to give yet another speech on the Iraq war...But Cheney, as is his custom, refused at AEI to take questions from reporters on this or any other subject...

Robert Dreyfuss
TomPaine.com
November 9, 2005

Chalabi And AEI: The Sequel

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051110/chalabi_and_aei_the_sequel.php

The convicted embezzler, the suave fabricator of intelligence, and the secularist-turned-Shiite fundamentalist-turned-Iranian agent, the elusive subject of a slow-moving FBI spy investigation, and the self-described “hero in error” approached the podium at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday after a glowing introduction from Chris DeMuth, AEI’s president. After grumbling that the cherubic man he was about to introduce has been “defamed, undermined and attacked by agencies of the U.S. government,” DeMuth concluded: “Please give a warm welcome to this very great and very brave Iraqi patriot, liberal and liberator, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi.”

Gary Kamiya
Salon.com
October 6, 2005

The road to hell

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/10/07/packer/print.html

In the definitive book about the Iraq war, liberal hawk George Packer tells the whole story of America's worst foreign-policy debacle -- and reveals how good intentions can go terribly wrong

...In effect, the far-right AEI was running the White House's Iraq policy -- and the AEI's war-at-all-costs imperatives drove the Pentagon, too.

Philip Weiss
NewYorkMetro.com
July 31, 2005

George Soros’s Right-Wing Twin

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Bruce+Covner+-+George+Soros%02019s+Right-Wing+Twin&expire=&urlID=14936924&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewyorkmetro.com%2Fnymetro%2Fnews%2Fpeople%2Ffeatures%2F12353%2Findex4.html&partnerID=73272

Multibillionaire commodities king Bruce Kovner is the patron saint of the neoconservatives, the new Lincoln Center’s crucial Medici, owner of a vast Fifth Avenue mansion—and the most powerful New Yorker you’ve never heard of

[Kovner] manages the largest hedge fund in the world...He is among the backers of the Manhattan Institute and the fledgling right-wing daily the New York Sun

...Most important, Kovner is chairman of the American Enterprise Institute...In a speech at AEI, George W. Bush thanked the tank for supplying him more brains than any other organization, nearly twenty, including Dick Cheney, who is said to be close to Kovner, and John Bolton...As well as many of the architects of America’s Iraq policy, from Richard Perle to David Frum to Michael Rubin to David Wurmser

...This is perhaps Bruce Kovner’s signal (and shared) achievement: to underwrite what had been extreme ideas and bring them into mainstream discourse.

Media Matters
October 19, 2004

CNN's (AEI Fellow Bill)) Schneider claimed: "Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda network ... would very much like to defeat President Bush" in upcoming election

http://mediamatters.org/items/200409200007

CNN senior political analyst and American Enterprise Institute resident fellow Bill Schneider claimed that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network "would very much like to defeat President [George W.] Bush" in November's presidential election...

FAIR
February 28, 1999

American Enterprise Institute finds profit in prejudice

http://www.fair.org/extra/9903/aei.html

FAIR analyzes the American Enterprise Institute's racism (1999)

Bill Berkowitz
WorkingForChange
February 27, 2003

Bush's victory sermon

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14573

Buck-by-buck, organization - by - organization, initiative-by-initiative the right-wing movement develops

It was a foreign policy speech, but it was a victory speech as well. President Bush chose the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute to address the nation Wednesday night and unveil the blueprint for the future of the Middle East...

New York Daily News
February 11, 2002

Lay Drops Out of Think Tank

http://www.mostnewyork.com/2002-02-12/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-141155.php

Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay has quietly stepped down from a think tank (AEI) board on which he served with Vice President Cheney, the Daily News has learned.

David Skinner
Salon
February 14, 2001

Conservative Movement Triumphant

http://salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/15/thomas/

In a speech to the "conservative prom" at the AEI, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said it was "awe-inspiring" to read the product of sponsored conservative ideologues such as Gertrude Himmelfarb, Michael Novak, Michael Ledeen, Robert Bork and others who were in the audience that very night.

Body & Soul
July 1, 2004

More Pills

http://bodyandsoul.typepad.com/blog/2004/07/aids_cocktails_.html

... an op-ed by a physician from the American Enterprise Institue, Sally Satel, [warned that ] the World Health Organization was subjecting poor, HIV-positive people [to medical harm by] approving generic drugs that haven't been proven to work... but the fact is, generic drugs aren't normally tested. All they have to do is prove that they are chemically the same as the brand-name version.

Also see:

American Prospect
May 2, 2004

The Squeeze is On

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8680

The last three years have hurt the middle class -- no matter what the American Enterprise Institute or Slate might say.

...when...Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute writes an article dismissing the notion of a middle-class squeeze, it’s worth taking notice.

...[the] widening chasm between overall economic growth and the fortunes of middle-income families means that one cannot assume, as Hassett does, that such families' fortunes must be rising along with the general tide.

Brad DeLong
June 15, 2004

More American Enterprise Institute-Quality Research

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001014.html

...this is AEI-quality research: hunt around for a vaguely plausible indicator that the underbriefed, gullible, and too hasty will take as a quantitative indicator, and make sure to keep the real data far from your audience's hands....

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke
Washington Monthly
February 29, 2004

Twilight of the Neocons

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0403.clarke.html

[American Enterprise Institute fellow] Richard Perle has begun to panic.

Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
January 29, 2004

Perle Must Resign - Or be fired...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=1804

The miasma of malfeasance that surrounds [American Enterprise Institute "Resident Fellow" Richard]Perle is unseemly...To say nothing of the penumbra of malevolence that seems to hover over his very person...The man is an ambassador of ill will for this administration, at home as well as abroad...

wage slave journal
January 14, 2004

Schneider should go

http://www.wage-slave.org/archives/00000290.html

On Wednesday's Inside Politics, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider (a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute) equated being a Democrat with hypocrisy

Nicholas Confessore
Washington Monthly
November 30, 2003

Meet the Press

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.confessore.html

James Glassman - JournalLobbyist

How James Glassman (a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute) reinvented journalism--as lobbying.

Jay Bookman
Atlanta Journal Constitution
September 20, 2003

[AEI] Scholar's fallacy fed push for war

http://ajc.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Welcome+to+AJC%21&expire=&urlID=7625296&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ajc.com%2Fsunday%2Fcontent%2Fepaper%2Feditions%2Fsunday%2Fissue_f3d611dd90b3608b10f0.html&partnerID=557

At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were equally frustrated by the lack of evidence to confirm [Laurie] Mylroie's theory. Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency were instructed to study Mylroie's book, which they had already concluded was groundless. Nonetheless, "the message was, why can't we prove this is right?" a DIA official told the [Washington] Post.

Brad DeLong
September 15, 2003

Not the Whopper of the Quinquennium

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/002239.html

...Glassman and Hassett didn't dare to print the subtitle of their book: "The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market" [because that ] would have made their whoppers too transparent.

Steve Gilliard
Daily Kos
July 24, 2003

Dick Cheney and his lies

http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003525.html#003525

Dick Cheney gave a speech before his favorite group today, the American Enterprise Institute. As is par with this Administration, it was packed with lies, distortions and errors.

Ralph Nader
In The Public Interest
June 12, 2003

The American Enterprise Institute has a problem

http://www.nader.org/interest/061303.html

It is loaded with corporate money, full of rich fellowships for Washington, D.C. influence peddlers, masquerading as conservatives, who wallow in plush offices figuring out how to assure that big corporations rule the U.S. and the rest of the world...

Mark A. R. Kleiman
May 1, 2003

LOTT, DONOHUE, AND LEVITT

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/000355.html

If [AEI Scholar John] Lott were at a university, he would certainly be facing an inquiry into his professional ethics. The American Enterprise Institute needs to decide whether it is a scholarly institution or a propaganda mill, and act accordingly, and the rest of us need to adjust our attitude toward AEI activities and publications accordingly.

BartCop.com
December 28, 2002

Who runs the government? American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

http://www.bartcopnation.com/dcforum/DCForumID1/21123.html

EDITOR'S NOTE: Contains lots of disparate information about AEI