American Enterprise Institute

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The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943 whose stated mission is to support the "foundations of freedom - limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense." The Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization supported primarily by grants and contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals.

Like most think tanks that maintain non-profit status under the federal tax code, AEI is officially nonpartisan and takes no institutional positions on pending legislation or other policy questions.

However, it has emerged as one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's public policy. More than two dozen AEI alumni have served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions. AEI, along with the more conservative Heritage Foundation, is often cited as a center-right counterpart to the center-left Brookings Institution. In 1998, AEI and Brookings established the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.

Contents 1 "Irrational Exuberance" 2 Personnel 2.1 President and trustees 2.2 Scholars and fellows 3 Funders 4 Governance 5 External links

[edit] "Irrational Exuberance"

AEI garnered significant global attention on December 5, 1996, when Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan addressed the institute and remarked, just a few years before the 2000 stock market correction, that the American stock market may have ascended unduly, attributable to what Greenspan called the "irrational exuberance" of investors.

Greenspan's comments to AEI proved to be among his most notable, leading to significant debate over whether American stock evaluations were, in fact, overvalued and even to a book named for the comment, "Irrational Exuberance".

[edit] Personnel

[edit] President and trustees

• Christopher DeMuth, who served in the Reagan administration, has been president of AEI since 1986.
• Bruce Kovner is the chairman of the board of trustees.
• Lee Raymond, ex-CEO of ExxonMobil, is the vice chair of AEI's board of trustees.

[edit] Scholars and fellows

• Lynne Cheney, wife of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, AEI senior fellow.
• Mark Falcoff, Resident Scholar Emeritus and Latin America expert.
• Ted Frank is resident fellow and director of the AEI Liability Project.
• David Frum, an author and former speechwriter for Bush, is a resident fellow.
• Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow. He is the director of the Project for the New American Century's Middle East Initiative and a former Middle East specialist at the CIA.
• Newt Gingrich, member of the Republican Party and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives between 1995 and 1999, is a senior fellow at AEI focusing on health care (he has founded the Center for Health Transformation), information technology, the military, and politics.
• James K. Glassman, author of Dow 36,000, is a resident fellow.
• Michael Greve is the John G. Searle Scholar and director of AEI's Federalism Project.
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former Dutch politician, women's rights activist and critic of Islam.
• Frederick Kagan is a military historian and signatory of Project for the New American Century manifesto titled Rebuilding America's Defenses (2000) along with his brother Robert (co-founder of the PNAC) and his father and fellow neo-conservative, Donald Kagan.
• Jeane Kirkpatrick is the former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and an AEI senior fellow.
• Irving Kristol, Senior AEI member and founder of political journal The Public Interest and the foreign affairs journal The National Interest. He is known as the 'Godfather of Neoconservative Momvement', His son, William Kristol is a prominent member and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century.
• Michael Ledeen was previously involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair -- an adventure that he documented in his book, Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.
• Allan Meltzer is one of the foremost academics studing monetary policy and the Federal Reserve Bank. He, along with economist Milton Friedman, pioneered monetarism, the now widely accepted theory that inflation is entirely the result of the growth of the money supply. Dr. Meltzer is currently working on the second volume of his History of the Federal Reserve.
• Joshua Muravchik, is a Resident Scholar. He researches Middle East politics, democracy, neoconservatism and the history of socialism.
• Charles Murray, an influential policy writer and a researcher, is the W.H. Brady Scholar in Culture and Freedom. He is best known as the co-author of the controversial 1994 book, The Bell Curve.
• Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy and Public Policy and Director of Social and Political Studies at the institute. He has written extensively about the role of faith in government.
• Norman Ornstein has been a Congressional analyst and political commentator for more than thirty five years.
• Richard Perle served on the United States Defense Policy Board and is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense.
• Sally Satel is a psychiatrist and author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness is Corrupting Medicine.
• Christina Hoff Sommers is a critic of the feminist movement. She is the author of Who Stole Feminism and The War Against Boys.
• Fred Thompson, Television and film actor, currently appearing on the telvision show Law & Order, former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, researches "National Security & Intelligence (China, North Korea, and Russia)" for the AEI.
• Ben Wattenberg, a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson, is a senior fellow.
• John Yoo, formerly of the Office of Legal Counsel, and a professor at Boalt Hall, is a visiting scholar.
• Karl Zinsmeister, editor in chief of the American Enterprise Magazine 1994-2006, as of 2006 Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.

[edit] Funders

AEI has received more than $30 million in funding from sources including the following:

• The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
• Castle Rock Foundation
• Coors
• Earhart Foundation
• JM Foundation
• Microsoft Corporation [1]
• Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc.
• John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
• Sarah Scaife Foundation
• Scaife Family Foundation
• Smith Richardson Foundation

[edit] Governance

The AEI is governed by a board of trustees. Current members of the board are: Gordon Binder, Harian Crow, Chris DeMuth, Morton Fleischer, Chris Galvin, Raymond Gilmartin, Harvey Golub, Robert Greenhill, Roger Hertog, Martin Koffel, John Luke, Ben Lytle, Alex Mandl, Robert Pritzker, Joe Ricketts, Kevin Rollins, John W. Rowe, Edward Rust, William Stavropoulos, Wilson Taylor, Marilyn Ware, and James Q. Wilson.

Emeritus trustees of the organization are: Willard Butcher, Richard Madden, Robert Malott, Paul McCracken, Paul Oreffice, and Henry Wendt.

[edit] External links

• The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Official Web Site.
• Profile of the American Enterprise Institute, SourceWatch.
• The American Enterprise print magazine.
• Media Transparency profile of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
• Truth, Justice and the American Way: The American Enterprise Institute by Nathan Tabor.