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MAY 2003
Pay-per-"view" think tanks push business tax breaks
by Rick S. Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO

The Washington Post recently reported that technology firms including Microsoft are lobbying Congress for a new $4 billion tax cut.  That’s no surprise.  But the story also quoted a Brookings Institution director who said his organization turned down a lucrative offer from one tech firm to write a study endorsing the idea.

Welcome to the cynical world of pay-per-“view” think-tank studies endorsing business competitiveness (read: tax breaks), where noble analysts apparently congratulate themselves on the occasions they don’t take the money.

Brookings is one of literally hundreds of non-profit public policy organizations that have proliferated nationwide generating studies, press releases, newspaper op-eds and talking points for elected officials. Clearly, these think tanks have tremendous influence on public policy.  And as the rare admission in the Post story reveals, they exert that influence at a price.

These groups almost always describe themselves as “independent nonpartisan research organizations” – the nonpartisan part is necessary to maintain tax-exempt status.  Some admit to general philosophical bents, such as limiting taxes, but most often they simply purport to promote good government.

The only real way to figure out who’s running these think tanks is to find out who funds them.  But many refuse to reveal that information, thus maintaining the mask of independence and protecting the anonymity of donors that don’t want to be associated with their positions.  (This is especially true of the most aggressive anti-union ones, like the National Right-to-Work Committee and our state’s own Evergreen Freedom Foundation.)

So that leaves the governing boards. The Brookings Institutes’ board, like those of the vast majority of think tanks out there, is a who’s who of CEOs.

In our state, the governing boards of the Washington Research Council, the Washington Policy Center and the Washington Roundtable are almost exclusively corporate executives.  In a circular morass of anti-tax and pro-privatization ideology, they refer to each other’s studies to support their arguments, and then spawn even more groups (comprised by each other!) with new names like the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy.

Thus they create an illusion of consensus around their proposals which, with few exceptions, have these common denominators: reduced business taxes and regulation, lower wages, fewer benefits, more privatization and, of course, weaker unions.

In recent weeks the Washington Research Council and the (CEOs of the) Roundtable released well-timed studies defending the state’s corporate tax breaks.  Their mid-April reports were issued to maximize influence on intense late-session budget negotiations in Olympia.

Both studies generated newspaper, radio and television reports with reaction from state lawmakers. And since that time, the studies have been repeatedly cited in newspaper editorials supporting the tax breaks.  One became the central argument for a newspaper op-ed by Senate Republican budget negotiator Dino Rossi headlined “State needs business tax exemptions to compete.”

Believe me, I could give you an earful (or pageful) about what I think of some of these think tanks’ proposals. But my point today is simple: consider the source. Of course the Washington Research Council supports business tax breaks. If they didn't, they wouldn't exist.

I don’t know about you, but given recent revelations about corporate accounting malfeasance, scandalous executive pay and elaborate anti-American “business tax avoidance” schemes, I’m not particularly inclined to have some of these jokers tell me how our government should be run.

Corporate interests already dominate our political debate with their money. I’m not going to let them buy and sell me the truth, as well.

Rick Bender is President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO,
the largest labor organization in the state.

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Copyright © 2003  Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO