The Heritage Foundation has historically ranked among the world's most influential think tanks. In 2020, the
Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, published by the
University of Pennsylvania, ranked the foundation sixth on its list of "top ten think tanks in the United States", 13th among think tanks globally, and first in its category of think tanks having the most significant impact on public policy between 2017 and 2019.
[86]
In January 1981, the Heritage Foundation published Mandate for Leadership, a comprehensive report aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. It provided public policy guidance to the incoming Reagan administration, and included over 2,000 specific policy recommendations on how the Reagan administration could utilize the federal government to advance conservative policies. The report was well received by the White House, and several of its authors went on to take positions in the Reagan administration.[16] Ronald Reagan liked the ideas so much that he gave a copy to each member of his cabinet to review.[17] Among the 2,000 Heritage proposals, approximately 60% of them were implemented or initiated by the end of Reagan's first year in office.[16][18] Reagan later called the Heritage Foundation a "vital force" during his presidency.[17]
The Heritage Foundation remained an influential voice on domestic and foreign policy issues during President
George H. W. Bush's
administration. In 1990 and 1991, the foundation was a leading proponent of
Operation Desert Storm designed to
liberate Kuwait following
Saddam Hussein's
invasion and occupation of
Kuwait in August 1990. According to
Baltimore Sun Washington bureau chief Frank Starr, the Heritage Foundation's studies "laid much of the groundwork for Bush administration thinking" about post-
Soviet foreign policy.
[24] In domestic policy, the Bush administration agreed with six of the ten budget reform proposals the Heritage Foundation proposed in its
Mandate for Leadership III book, which the administration included in its 1990 budget proposal.
Trump administration
Following Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election, the Heritage Foundation obtained influence in his
presidential transition and
administration.
[61][47][62] The foundation had a say in the staffing of the administration;
CNN reported during the transition that "no other Washington institution has that kind of footprint in the transition."
[61] One reason for the Heritage Foundation's disproportionate influence relative to other conservative think tanks, CNN reported, was that other conservative think tanks had "
Never Trump" staff during the
2016 presidential election, while the Heritage Foundation ultimately signaled that it would be supportive of him.
[61][47]
Drawing from a database that the Heritage Foundation began building in 2014 of approximately 3,000 conservatives who they trusted to serve in a hypothetical Republican administration, at least 66 foundation employees and alumni were hired into the Trump administration.
[47] According to Heritage employees involved in developing the database, several hundred people from the Heritage database ultimately received jobs in government agencies, including
Betsy DeVos,
Mick Mulvaney,
Rick Perry,
Scott Pruitt,
Jeff Sessions, and others who became members of Trump's cabinet.
[47] Jim DeMint, president of the Heritage Foundation from 2013 to 2017, personally intervened on behalf of Mulvaney, who was appointed to head the
Office of Management and Budget and the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and later served as Trump's acting
White House Chief of Staff.
[4
n February 2021, after Trump
lost re-election, the Heritage Foundation hired three former Trump administration officials,
Ken Cuccinelli,
Mark A. Morgan, and
Chad Wolf, who held various roles in immigration-related functions in the Trump administration. Cuccinelli and Wolf authored several publications in 2021 before leaving the foundation.
[67][68][69]
At the same time, Heritage also hired former
U.S. vice president Mike Pence as a distinguished visiting fellow. The following month, in March 2021, Pence authored and published an op-ed on a Heritage Foundation website that made
false claims of fraud in the
2020 presidential election, including numerous false claims about the
For the People Act, a
Democrat-supported bill to expand
voting rights. Pence's false claims drew criticism and corrections from multiple media outlets and
fact-checking organizations.
[70][71][72] Pence left the foundation in 2022.
[73][74]
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