The Heritage Foundation buffs up: Readying a twenty-first century attack on 'liberal' social programs

The latest dispatch from the Heritage Foundation is a reminder that think tanks don't grow on trees. They may use up a lot of them -- although these days at most thinkeries cyberspace is a more than capable paper substitute. In the world of Washington-based think tanks the name of the game is money which, as my mother often reminded me, also doesn't grow on trees.
The folks at Heritage are not sitting back and resting on their laurels. They may be involved in shuttling comrades off to the Bush Administration, working on Homeland Security issues, pushing the privatization of Social Security, developing marriage proposals for welfare reauthorization and a bunch of other projects, but that hasn't stopped them from peppering their supporters for more cash.

It's not that Heritage has fallen on hard times. Just the opposite is true. According to Media Transparency, a web site tracking right-wing money, from 1986 through 1999, right-wing foundations doled out more than $35,500,000 to the Heritage Foundation. And, it wasn't that long ago that Washington's premier right-wing think tank concluded its multiyear campaign celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary by raising over $100 million.