Amerikanska tankesmedjor

Igår skrev Robert Samuelson i sin krönika i Washington Post om att Stuart Butler lämnar Heritage Foundation och går över till Brookings Institution i Washington DC inom kort. Han blev förbluffad:

I admit to being surprised, even stunned. It’s as though Derek Jeter decided to play for the Red Sox or Vladimir Putin became secretary general of the United Nations.

Baseballspelaren Derek Jeter har spelat i hela sin karriär för New York Yankees.

Samuelson om Heritage och Brookings:

Most think tanks were once idea factories. They sponsored research from which policy proposals might flow. In the supply chain of political influence, their studies became the grist for politicians’ programs. But think-tank scholars didn’t lobby or campaign. Politicians and party groups did that. There was an unspoken, if murky, division of labor. This was Butler’s world.

But it’s disappearing, and many think tanks — liberal and conservative — have become more active politically. They are now message merchants, packaging and merchandizing agendas for a broader public. Heritage has long been aggressive in peddling its message and has become more so. In 2010, it created an affiliate — Heritage Action — that lobbied and mobilized grass-roots conservatives. In this world, I surmise, Butler’s role is diminished. By contrast, Brookings remains a bit more traditional.

Jag tycker, som jag tidigare skrivit, att utvecklingen av Heritage är tragisk. Att en stolt tankesmedja blir en ointressant propagandamegafon för Tea Party-rörelsen kommer inte att förbättra USA. Och USA behöver nya, begåvade idéer.

Men sådana utvecklas de på andra håll.

En annan klassisk tankesmedja i Washington DC är Urban Institute. Där arbetar Gene Steuerle. Om honom och hans bok ”Dead Men Ruling” skrev Charles Lane i Post samma dag som Samuelson funderade över Stuart Butler:

Congress and the president have almost no fiscal latitude. The vast majority of anticipated tax proceeds, roughly 80 percent at present, are already committed to be spent — on programs such as Social Security and Medicare and in interest on the national debt — before the House and Senate convene each January.  

By 2023, the figure will approach 100 percent if current trends continue. Consequently, the federal government would have to borrow its entire discretionary budget, for things such as disaster relief, infrastructure and education.

This near-total loss of “fiscal freedom” is the theme of “,” a short, superb new book by , from which the above statistics derive; the title nicely expresses the fact that today’s lawmakers are tightly constrained by the accumulated, and seemingly unalterable, decisions of their predecessors. Government is not just out of their control; it’s beyond their control.

Så visst finns det tankar värda att tänka. Utan nya tankar blir världen inte bättre.