Size Matters

Size Matters is a compendium of the larger and more established organizations and think-tanks working overtime to educate the public on the dangers posed by the biggest threat to our liberty and prosperity–the United States Government.  We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

MyGovCost.org
This is your personal Government Cost Calculator. By simply providing your education, age, and income, you can generate the startling results. Let’s get started!

Center for Small Government
Big government is the problem.  Small government is the solution.
http://www.centerforsmallgovernment.com/index.htm

Downsize DC
Downsize DC believes the federal government has grown too centralized, too intrusive, and too expensive. We believe in constitutional limits, smaller government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes. We want to end laws and programs that don’t work, cause harm, and violate the Constitution. We want to restore the full force of the 9th and 10th amendments, which reserve most social functions to the people and the states.

Foundation for Economic Education
The Foundation for Economic Education, founded in 1946, is the leader in education, publishing, and the production of ideas related to the economic, ethical and legal principles of a free society.

For young minds interested in market economics and its foundations in the broader philosophy of individual liberty, FEE is the best source for inspiring content, programs and community. FEE is not an academic or political organization; instead our focus is making the economic, ethical and legal principles of a free society widely accessible, easily understood and energizing to young minds.

FEE’s mission is inspire, educate, and connect young adults with the economic, ethical and legal principles of a free society. FEE does this by delivering content that is substantive and thoughtful in forms most convenient to our customers, including in-person seminars and lectures, web-delivered content, printed material in book and magazine form, and networking opportunities.

At FEE, young people—and educators who work with them—will find an exciting and optimistic exposure to the classical liberal tradition in free-market economics as well as opportunities to connect with other young people and free-market organizations around the world. Read Israel Kirzner’s essay on FEE’s approach to understanding life and our mission here.

FEE envisions a world where the ideas of liberty are familiar and credible to the rising generation.

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the oldest free-market organization in the United States, was founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read to study and advance the freedom philosophy.  During its long and illustrious history, FEE has published or hosted lectures by some of the finest minds of the modern age, including Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, Israel Kirzner, Walter Williams, George Stigler, Frank Chodorov, John Chamberlain, F.A. “Baldy” Harper, William F. Buckley Jr., among many others.  You can learn more about the history of FEE through this wonderful collection of remarks by Henry Hazlitt.

Through our website, our magazine The Freeman, and our summer seminars and a constant stream of online resources and activities, FEE is constantly focused on providing high school and college students with the inspiration, education, and networking they need to become effective advocates for liberty and the free-market system.  We hope you will explore our website in depth and find what you need.  If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us at info@fee.org.

The Foundation for Economic Education is a non-political, non-profit, tax-exempt educational foundation and accepts no taxpayer money. FEE is supported solely by contributions from private individuals, foundations, and businesses and by the sales of its publications.

The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)
ARI fosters a growing awareness, understanding and acceptance of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, in order to create a culture whose guiding principles are reason, rational self-interest, individualism and laissez-faire capitalism­­ — a culture in which individuals are free to pursue their own happiness.

How? Our strategy, priorities and programs are informed by Rand’s distinctive view of what sets the direction of a society. It is not the latest election results or media celebrities but the philosophic ideas that shape men’s choices and actions.

Owner: Leonard Peikoff | Credit: Ayn Rand Archives

AYN RAND’S PHILOSOPHY

To advance Objectivism, ARI focuses on areas that have a long-term multiplying impact on the direction of our culture — notably, education and policy debates.

The education system, from grade school to academia, conveys the basic ideas through which people try to make sense of their lives and the world. Engage students, educators, scholars — and you can achieve large scale and enduring influence.

Look closer at public policy, beyond sound bites and election cycles, and you’ll find fundamental moral ideas that frame crucial debates. Reframe those debates in line with the principles of rational egoism and individual rights — and you help lay the foundations of a free society.


The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LVMI)
The Mises Institute, founded in 1982, is an educational institution devoted to advancing Austrian economics, freedom, and peace in the classical-liberal tradition.

For over 30 years the Mises Institute has provided both scholars and laymen with resources to broaden their understanding of the economic school of thought known as Austrian economics. This school is most closely associated with our namesake, economist Ludwig von Mises.

We are the worldwide epicenter of the Austrian movement.

Through their research in the fields of economics, history, philosophy, and political theory, Mises’s students F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, and others carried the Austrian school into the late twentieth century. Today, Mises Institute scholars and researchers continue the important work of the Austrian school.

Austrian economics is a method of economic analysis, and is non-ideological. Nonetheless, the Austrian school has long been associated with libertarian and classical-liberal thought—promoting private property and freedom, while opposing war and aggression of all kinds. The Mises Institute continues to support research and education in this radical pro-freedom tradition of historians, philosophers, economists, and theorists such asJean-Baptiste Say, Frédéric Bastiat, Richard Cobden, Herbert Spencer, Lysander Spooner, William Graham Sumner, Albert Jay Nock, Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, Rothbard, and others.

The National Debt Awareness Center
Using only U.S. Government statistics, the site is constantly updated with ever more eye-popping data.  A wealth of information, albeit of questionable veracity, for lovers of liberty who also love to crunch the numbers.
http://www.federalbudget.com/


Libertarian Party
The Libertarian Party is your representative in American politics. It is the only political organization which respects you as a unique and competent individual.

The Libertarian way is a logically consistent approach to politics based on the moral principle of self-ownership. Each individual has the right to control his or her own body, action, speech, and property. Government’s only role is to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud.

Small Business Against Big Government
Small Business Against Big Government (SBABG) is a non-partisan, grassroots coalition of small business owners and employees allied against Big Government.  We take upon ourselves the responsibility to oppose Big Government and inform friends and co-workers about how Big Government hurts them.

The American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprise. AEI pursues these unchanging ideals through independent thinking, open debate, reasoned argument, facts and the highest standards of research and exposition. Without regard for politics or prevailing fashion, we dedicate our work to a more prosperous, safer and more democratic nation and world.

AEI is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics and social welfare. AEI’s purpose is to serve leaders and the public through research and education on the most important issues of the day. AEI research is conducted through seven primary research divisions: Economics, Foreign and Defense Policy, Politics and Public Opinion, Education, Health, Energy and the Environment and Society and Culture.

More than 200 people work at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. In addition, adjunct scholars and fellows, mainly at research universities around the United States, conduct research for AEI and participate in its conferences. In all our endeavors, AEI trustees, scholars and fellows, and officers and staff are responsible for maintaining the highest standards of integrity, intellectual rigor and excellence—and for sustaining AEI’s founding commitment to open inquiry, lucid exposition, vigorous debate and continuous improvement in the institutions of American liberty.

Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. Our mission is to promote both freedom and fairness by making good policy good politics. We make the uncompromising case for economic freedom because we believe it is essential for entrepreneurship, innovation, and prosperity to flourish.

Unique among free market groups, CEI pursues a full-service approach to advancing public policy. We publish original scholarly studies that make the case for an issue, but our work doesn’t end there. We then take it to the next level by marketing our policy proposals. We craft and deploy media advocacy campaigns around that foundation of solid research in order to reach policy makers, influential opinion leaders, and grassroots activists. CEI policy analysts produce timely commentaries for major news organizations, appear on television and radio, and reach out to beat reporters covering our issues.

We also build coalitions, joining with allies to advance specific issues at the state, national, and international levels. When appropriate, we pursue our pro-freedom advocacy in court. We have brought lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of dubious statutes, interstate agreements, and onerous regulations, and we have sued government agencies to force the disclosure of public information.

Founded in 1984, CEI has grown into an effective advocate for freedom on a wide range of critical policy issues, including energy, environment, business and finance, technology, telecommunications, and food and drug regulation.

Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues.

Founded in 1977, Cato owes its name to Cato’s Letters, a series of essays published in 18th- century England that presented a vision of society free from excessive government power. Those essays inspired the architects of the American Revolution. And the simple, timeless principles of that revolution — individual liberty, limited government, and free markets – turn out to be even more powerful in today’s world of global markets and unprecedented access to information than Jefferson or Madison could have imagined. Social and economic freedom is not just the best policy for a free people, it is the indispensable framework for the future.

Independent Institute
The Independent Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, scholarly research and educational organization that sponsors in-depth studies of critical social and economic issues.

The mission of the Independent Institute is to boldly advance peaceful, prosperous, and free societies grounded in a commitment to human worth and dignity.

Today, the influence of partisan interests is so pervasive that public-policy debate has become too politicized and is largely confined to a narrow reconsideration of existing policies. In order to fully understand the nature of public issues and possible solutions, the Institute’s program adheres to the highest standards of independent scholarly inquiry.

The resulting studies are published and widely distributed as books, articles in The Independent Review,Policy Reports, Working Papers, and other publications. Events sponsored by the Institute bring together scholars and policy experts to debate issues and discuss their implications. This work is conducted in conjunction with a series of educational centers:

In addition, the Institute publishes the quarterly newsletter, The Independent and sends out the weekly email newsletter, The Lighthouse. We maintain an extensive online archive of Institute articles and studies on a variety of topics.

Student programs include The Challenge of Liberty Summer Seminars for high school and college students, Student Internships for college students, and The Independent Scholarship Fund, providing tuition assistance for K–12 students to attend private schools in the Bay Area.

The Independent Institute receives no government funding. Instead, it draws its support from a diverse range of foundations, businesses, and individuals, and from the sale of its publications. Contributions to the Independent Institute are tax-deductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Independent Institute members receive Institute publications plus discounts to Independent Policy Forums and other events.

Through uncommon independence, depth, and clarity, the Independent Institute expands the frontiers of our knowledge of public policy and fosters new and effective directions for government reform.

Tragedy and Hope Communications
Tragedy and Hope Communications is informed and inspired by the work of the late Carroll Quigley, historian, author, and professor of the evolution of civilization at Georgetown University.  President Clinton credits Quigley as the most influential figure in his life.  Professor Quigley’s epic work on the world’s power elite, Tragedy and Hope, serves as the launching pad for much of the group’s work.  T&H is a powerhouse of intelligence on the history and machinations of the world’s power elite, Agenda 21 as an engine for world government, the evils of compulsive mass education, and the media and academia as active co-conspirators.  T&H will aggressively challenge your lifelong assumptions and the prevailing wisdom    They will take you to places you’ve never been.

Tragedy and Hope provides a portal through which individuals can discover, identify, and integrate useful tools, resources, and activities which stimulate and fortify Cognitive Liberty, providing primary sources, research, and educational methods which facilitate consciousness.

Tragedy and Hope’s purpose is to enable individuals to research and form groups of independent thinkers to solve humanity’s most pressing problems, by identifying the etiology (study of the cause-and-effect origins) and thus understanding our way toward the solutions we seek.

Tragedy and Hope’s form and function (free to the public) enables hundreds-of-thousands of people around the world, to experience open-source education without upper-limits, and it is therein where the solutions are discovered- by making the problems truly known and understood at a root-cause level.

Tragedy and Hope creates, produces, and publishes educational content to help adults understand the world they live in and thereby, develop true self-confidence and serenity of mind; our content focuses on history, philosophy, economics, anthropology, science, communications, and every topic which pertains to learning how to survive and thrive in this world.

Tragedy and Hope is funded by those who tune-in to our productions, and the members of the Tragedy and Hope online critical thinking and research community, who subscribe after witnessing the value provided, and voluntarily deciding to contribute in a way to ensure we can continue producing educational media with integrity and consistency. Sacrifice the Tragedy, Preserve the Hope.

Citizens Against Government Waste
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is a 501(c)(3) private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization representing more than 1 million members and supporters nationwide. CAGW works to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government through research and public education activities. Founded in 1984 by the late businessman J. Peter Grace and late Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jack Anderson, CAGW is the legacy of President Ronald Reagan’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, also known as the Grace Commission.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) is the 501(c)(4) lobbying arm of CAGW.  CCAGW’s mission is to advocate the elimination of waste and inefficiency in government through lobbying and grassroots activities.  Each year, CCAGW tabulates its Congressional Ratings, evaluating how each member of Congress measures up on key tax and spending votes.

In 1982, President Reagan directed the Grace Commission to “work like tireless bloodhounds to root out government inefficiency and waste of tax dollars.”  For two years, 161 corporate executives and community leaders led an army of 2,000 volunteers on a waste hunt through the federal government. The search was funded entirely by voluntary contributions of $76 million from the private sector; it cost taxpayers nothing. The Grace Commission made 2,478 recommendations, which would save $424.4 billion over three years, an average of $141.5 billion a year − all without eliminating essential services.

The 47 volumes and 21,000 pages of the Grace Commission Report constituted a vision of an efficient, well-managed government that is accountable to taxpayers. CAGW has worked to make that vision a reality and, in three decades, has helped save taxpayers $1.4 trillion through the implementation of Grace Commission findings and other cost-cutting recommendations.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has called CAGW, “the tip of the spear in the fight against pork-barrel spending, corruption, and business as usual in Washington.”  Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has praised CAGW for doing “a great job of highlighting the waste and the culture of corruption that is rampant in Washington, [which] sadly, [is] a bipartisan affair.”  And House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has credited CAGW with being “the vanguard of this [fight against runaway spending] for years!”

Today, CAGW is nationally recognized as the source of information on government waste.  CAGW’s waste findings have been featured in virtually every national newspaper and newsmagazine, including The New York Times, Time, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as on all of the nightly network television news programs and on other national network and cable news shows, such as “20/20,” “60 Minutes,” “Dateline,” “Hannity,” “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “PBS NewsHour,” “Squawk Box,” and “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

In carrying out its mission, CAGW authors and publishes original research and periodicals, including news articles, investigative reports, a semiannual newsletter, a comprehensive catalogue of private- and public-sector recommendations to reform the federal government, and a renowned exposé of pork-barrel spending, the Congressional Pig Book.  CAGW also testifies before Congress, holds briefings to educate congressional staff, hosts conferences and public forums, and makes presentations before civic groups.

CAGW’s and CCAGW’s record of success stems entirely from the voluntary support provided by individual, foundation, and corporate contributors.  CAGW and CCAGW do not accept government funds and receive 64 percent of their contributions from individual Americans.

 

 

 

 

 

1 thought on “Size Matters

  1. Pingback: Size Matters | THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE

Leave a comment