AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE Freedom. Opportunity. Enterprise. 2014 Annual Report 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, and the highest standards of fact-based research. Without regard for politics or prevailing fashion, we dedicate our work to a more prosperous, safer, and more democratic nation and world. Located in Washington, DC, AEI is one of America’s oldest and most influential think tanks. Our more than 60 full-time scholars are leaders in their fields. Through their research and writings, public events, and government testimony, they stress empiricism over opinion, fact over folly, and reason over rhetoric. AEI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is supported by donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations. For more information about AEI, visit our website, www.aei.org. Message from the Chairman and President President Arthur C. Brooks and Chairman Tully M. Friedman AEI exists to defend and strengthen freedom, individ- Chen Guangcheng, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates ual opportunity, and free enterprise—not because are helping AEI build a broad coalition of supporters these ideals are ends in themselves, but because who recognize that free enterprise and human liberty they help us all to live productive and happy lives. are moral imperatives. We have many more exciting Indeed, these ideals—secured by America’s global partnerships planned for the year ahead. leadership—are America’s gift to the world. As AEI reaches more people around the globe, Within AEI’s own community of scholars, staff, we are also deepening our ties to our core commun- and supporters, we find the power of those ideals ity. With the help of our Government Relations and at work. Consider Thanh Nguyen, a 16-year veteran Communications teams, AEI scholars continue to employee of AEI who fled Vietnam’s communist rule in lead the Washington policy community in terms of 1979 and found safe harbor in the United States. As a congressional testimonies and op-ed publication in the production coordinator at AEI, Thanh put his three nation’s most prominent newspapers. In tandem, our children through college, never missing a day of work. Campus Programs staff is engaging college students— Now recently retired, he anticipates spending more our future leaders—through programming on campus- time with his children—all professionals in Northern es nationwide and at our Washington headquarters. Virginia—and five grandchildren and fishing from his On that note, our trustees’ and donors’ remarkable boat in the Chesapeake Bay. Thanh earned his success, support for AEI’s Campaign for Free Enterprise and and we are proud to have been a part of it. American Progress has allowed AEI to secure a new Thanh’s story and millions just like it underscore headquarters in Washington, DC, which we are the importance of AEI’s work. Across the Institute’s honored to name the Daniel A. D’Aniello Building. research areas, our staff and scholars dedicate their Upon moving to this renovated historic building in time and talents to a mission that is positive, non- late 2015, AEI will have a physical infrastructure— partisan, and people-focused: fighting to help people including a modern events space, classrooms, and like Thanh enjoy the blessings of liberty, individual state-of-the-art radio and TV studios—that powerfully opportunity, and free enterprise. enhances our ideas-driven work. AEI is pursuing that mission more vigorously As we launch new initiatives, host world- than ever before. In early 2014, AEI launched our renowned leaders, and prepare to move to our Program on Human Flourishing, a major, multiyear magnificent new facility, the “deep magic” of AEI— initiative that combines work on poverty, economic independent, empirical, and courageous scholarship— mobility, and human liberty with major events and is stronger than ever. There is a reason why: your outreach to nontraditional constituencies. moral, financial, and intellectual support has Kicking off the program in February, His Holiness positioned AEI as the nation’s leading force for the Dalai Lama headlined a major public symposium individual opportunity and human liberty. Thank at AEI on the intersection of free enterprise and human you for joining us in our fight for people who flourishing. This collaboration garnered international deserve the chance to earn their success. attention for AEI’s mission and work. Similar collaborations from figures like Indian Tully M. Friedman Arthur C. Brooks spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Chinese dissident Chairman President Message 1 The Year in Review AEI’S IMPACT IN 2014 JANUARY FEBRUARY Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) delivers Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Tim Scott (R-SC) Leon Aron pens op-eds for the Washington remarks at an AEI event on Capitol Hill headline an AEI event on January 28, at which they release a Post and POLITICO—as well as an AEI marking the 50th anniversary of the War joint proposal to convert federal education funding into education research paper—and appears on C-SPAN’s on Poverty. During the speech, the senator scholarships for low-income students. The event takes place during Washington Journal in the run-up to the unveils a proposal that would shift greater National School Choice Week, during which AEI research fellow Winter Olympics in Sochi, which he control of federal antipoverty programs to Michael McShane hosts a major conference examining how describes as “an intensely personal— the states. Rubio tells reporters that AEI school choice can stimulate the creation of new, high-quality schools. and extremely expensive—endeavor is the “primary organization” he turns to for Russian President Vladimir Putin.” for policy advice. On the day of President Obama’s State of the Union address, former presidential speechwriter Marc Thiessen offers a behind- the-scenes look at the speechwriting process during a special AEI event. Speechwriters from the Reagan, Clinton, and Obama administrations participate. 2 AEI Annual Report His Holiness the Dalai Lama visits AEI for a two-day symposium Daniel A. D’Aniello, vice chairman of AEI’s Ahead of President Obama’s fiscal year on the intersection of free enterprise and human flourishing. During Board of Trustees, pledges $20 million to 2015 budget submission, the Marilyn his stay, the Buddhist spiritual leader meets with college students AEI in support of its mission to promote Ware Center for Security Studies hosts and participates in a public conference with psychologist Jonathan individual liberty, equal opportunity, and Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Haidt, economist Glenn Hubbard, and hedge fund manager Dan free enterprise. His gift will help AEI move Christine Fox for a discussion of US Loeb. News outlets including Newsweek, the New York Times, the to its new headquarters near Dupont Circle defense budgetary priorities in 2015 Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair profile the event. in Washington, DC. AEI’s new space will be and beyond. In an interview with named the Daniel A. D’Aniello Building. Mackenzie Eaglen, Fox addresses the consequences of diminished defense Robert Doar testifies before the Senate resources amid rising global instability. Budget Committee and offers recommen- dations to transition more Americans from welfare to the workforce. That same week, he publishes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal highlighting the success of programs that help at-risk men develop work skills and secure steady employment. Year in Review 3 MARCH AEI scholars Danielle Pletka, Leon Aron, Four years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into AEI hosts a conference on territorial and Gary Schmitt host a conference call law, Karlyn Bowman and Jennifer Marsico release an extensive taxation and the repatriation of foreign for journalists and Hill staff following polling report on health care. While their analysis reveals sustained profits, at which Jason Furman, chair- Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Pletka opposition to the ACA (just 2 in 10 Americans believe the law will man of President Obama’s Council of appears on CBS’s Face the Nation to make their situation better), it also finds that Americans trust Economic Advisers, delivers the keynote discuss the crisis, and Aron pens op-eds Democrats more than they trust Republicans to handle health care. address. Later that week, Alan Viard for Foreign Policy, CNN.com, and POLITICO Later that week, Scott Gottlieb publishes a Forbes piece (garnering releases a coauthored report that outlines that shed light on Russian President more than 260 comments online) documenting the rise in options for reforming the corporate tax Vladimir Putin’s motives. health insurance premium costs among young adults. system, with a particular focus on foreign income allocation. APRIL Charles Murray and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are During the daily White House press briefing, Mark Perry’s Kevin Hassett, Stan Veuger, Martin disinvited from speaking engagements research on the gender wage gap in the Obama administration Feldstein, James Pethokoukis, Jonah at Azusa Pacific University and Brandeis is cited by reporters from the Washington Post, USA Today, Goldberg, and others respond to Thomas University, respectively. Both publish the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News. CNN, CBS News, and Piketty’s bestselling book, Capital in the op-eds in the Wall Street Journal condemn- multiple talk radio outlets reference Perry’s research after the Twenty-First Century, arguing that the ing ideological intolerance and draw press briefing. Perry and Andrew Biggs also publish a major French economist’s analysis overlooks widespread attention to the absence of Wall Street Journal op-ed disproving the administration’s claim the growing role of the entitlement state diverse opinions on college campuses. that a significant gender wage gap persists in today’s economy.