A Timeline of Successes

Analysis completed by The Heritage Foundation determined that 64 percent of the policy prescriptions in Heritage's “Mandate for Leadership” series were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action in accordance with Heritage's original proposals.

Throughout the entire tax reform process Heritage played a central role in policy conversations, offering ideas that became reality in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Heritage hosted multiple key players to discuss what tax reform means for the American people, including: President of the United States Donald Trump; Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady and more. 

As a candidate, Donald Trump drew his list of potential Supreme Court nominees from Heritage recommendations. Many of his policy recommendations were drawn from our Mandate for Leadership series of policy guides. After his November election, Heritage continued to provide guidance on policy and personnel, and several dozen staff worked directly with the transition team.

The Heritage Foundation led the intellectual fight against Obamacare. And after the bill passed, we immediately started making the case for repeal. Working with our sister organization, Heritage Action for America, we kept up the drumbeat for repealing the health care law even when the Washington establishment urged otherwise.

Heritage took the lead stressing the importance of enforcing the rule of law and improving border security by thwarting attempts to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. The amnesty bill, which was officially and inaccurately titled the "Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007," was a misguided proposal which threatened to negatively reshape America's national character. Heritage played an active educational role in the efforts to crush this bill.

Heritage took less than a week to produce "From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities" -- a Marshall Plan for the Gulf Coast in response to Hurricane Katrina. White House officials and Congress quickly embraced many of its recommendations.

Heritage's best-in-Washington communications and media team sets new records in arranging interviews for Heritage policy analysts in print, radio and television media, churning out commentaries that are printed in the nation's most prestigious newspapers, and marketing conservative ideas to lawmakers and congressional staff.

Heritage nearly doubles in size, thanks to a gift of an eight-story building adjacent to its headquarters. In addition to providing much-needed office space and a new 230-seat auditorium, the new building houses college interns who spend a semester at Heritage being introduced to the world of public policy.

During the first 30 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Heritage creates a Homeland Security Task Force and provides 250 newspaper and magazine interviews and 185 radio and television interviews. In January, the Office of Homeland Security and the Joint Chiefs of Staff review the Taskforce's comprehensive recommendations--two-thirds of which eventually are implemented.

After a twenty-year effort by Heritage in laying the legal, technical, and policy groundwork, President Bush repeals the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, thereby clearing the way for deployment of missile defenses.

Heritage establishes the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, chaired by Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Ed Meese. The Center promotes a greater appreciation for the role of the Constitution in modern American democracy.

Heritage releases a groundbreaking book, "No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools," asserting that better results can be achieved through high standards and expectations, reinforced by a culture of achievement. Following Heritage's suggestion, CBS's "60 Minutes" produces a season-premiere story about two of the schools profiled in No Excuses.

With added support from the 25th anniversary campaign, Heritage inaugurates the Center for Media and Public Policy to provide media training for Heritage staff and offer courses in computer-assisted reporting to journalists. Mike Causey of The Washington Post states, "The Heritage Foundation is second to none in its ability to deal with the media."

Heritage begins its two-year celebration marking its 25th anniversary. Conservative leaders such as Lady Margaret Thatcher, William Buckley and Bill Bennett speak at Heritage events around the nation.

Heritage establishes the Center for Data Analysis to give congressional conservatives better analysis on tax and spending legislation in the fight for fundamental tax reform. 

Welfare reform is passed, based on a plan devised by Heritage experts. Liberals predict it will throw millions into poverty and leave children "sleeping on grates." Instead, more than five million individuals leave welfare and find work; child poverty drops; and black child poverty falls for the first time in 25 years, plunging to historic lows.

Heritage publicizes its most popular paper ever, "Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability," which summarizes the scientific data showing that the practice of religion has a dramatic impact on reducing teenage pregnancy, drug use, suicide rates, illegitimacy, and other pathologies. The paper is reported in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the country and ignites a call for restoring respect for religion in America. Seven years later, Heritage establishes the Center for Religion and Civil Society.

Heritage hosts a New Member Conference to educate the freshman class. Fifty-six Members of Congress attend while Harvard University's competing conference is canceled due to lack of interest. On the first day of the new session, the House reforms 15 rules: 13 of these rule reforms had been recommended by Heritage. Over the 100 days of the new Congress, Heritage analysts testify over 100 times.

Heritage establishes a Web presence with heritage.org and launches the tremendously popular Townhall.com. Conservative news, information, and commentary are now directly accessible to millions of Americans.

Heritage provides the intellectual ammunition to conservatives during the 1994 elections on issues such as welfare reform, tax cuts, and congressional reform. This leads to historic election victories for conservatives, and Heritage ideas become a major part of "The Contract With America."

The Heritage Consumer Choice Health Plan becomes the leading free-market alternative to President Clinton's government-oriented proposal. Nine years later, Heritage establishes the Center for Health Policy Studies to fight for reforms based on consumer choice.

Ronald Reagan addresses Heritage's Annual Board Meeting and says, "You [were] an invaluable resource on key issues such as tax cuts, reducing government spending, SDI, supporting freedom in Grenada, Nicaragua, Eastern Europe--wherever I needed Heritage, you were there."

Heritage releases the first edition of Issues: The Candidate's Briefing Book. This comprehensive guide to domestic, foreign, and defense policy issues helps conservative candidates frame the debate. In 2000, House Majority Leader Dick Armey said, "If candidates read nothing else, they should read Issues.... No candidate should run without it."

Heritage's public policy plan Out of the Poverty Trap: A Conservative Strategy for Welfare Reform provides a detailed outline for welfare reform. This helped set the stage for the 1996 reforms that changed the entitlement mentality in America, moving thousands off the dole and toward personal responsibility.

Within the first 10 minutes of the Reagan-Gorbachev Geneva summit, Gorbachev criticizes a briefing book prepared by Heritage. President Reagan responds, "I read it and liked it." Later, Gorbachev complained to the Supreme Soviet that Reagan stood fast on SDI because of the "mandate" from America's extreme right wing, "represented by their ideological headquarters, the Heritage Foundation."

In conjunction with its 10th anniversary, Heritage formally dedicates its new eight-story headquarters on Capitol Hill. It also establishes the Asian Studies Center to serve as a permanent and dynamic research program aimed at building stronger relations between the United States and Asian

Heritage publishes the first comprehensive, detailed study outlining a missile defense system to defend the United States from nuclear missile attack. The landmark study is presented to President Reagan by Heritage President Ed Feulner in a White House meeting. Six months later, Reagan makes his historic speech calling for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to protect America.

Heritage's Mandate for Leadership called for "An across-the-board reduction in marginal personal income tax rates in each bracket of about 10 percent in 1981, with similar rate reductions in 1982 and 1983." The Reagan administration not only followed Mandate's lead, but it appointed Heritage's Norman Ture, the Mandate author who penned the chapter on tax policy, as treasury secretary for tax and economic affairs -- a new position suggested by Mandate. The tax cut that eventually passed -- a marginal rate reduction of 25 percent over three years -- wiped out America's economic "malaise," producing the biggest economic boom in U.S. history.

Heritage's 1,093-page public policy blueprint, Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration, becomes the policy bible of the newly elected Reagan administration on everything from taxes and regulation to crime and national defense. The new president gives copies to every member of his Cabinet at their first meeting. The upshot: Nearly two-thirds of the 2,000 recommendations contained in Mandate were adopted by the Reagan administration.

Ed Feulner becomes president and sets up a new senior management staff. He also creates the Resource Bank to take on the liberal establishment and forge a national network of conservative policy groups and experts. Over the years, the Resource Bank grows to encompass more than 2,200 policy experts and 475 policy groups in the U.S. and other countries.

The Heritage Foundation is founded in order to deliver compelling and persuasive research to Congress providing facts, data, and sound arguments on behalf of conservative principles.