Reason Foundation

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Reason Foundation is supported by donations and sale of its publications.[1] According to 2012 disclosures,[4] its largest donors were the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation ($1,522,212) and the Sarah Scaife Foundation ($2,016,000).

In 2020, the independent rating group Charity Navigator rated Reason with four out of four stars.[10][11]

Reason Foundation publishes the Annual Privatization Report, which reports on news and trends in U.S. outsourcing, privatization, and public-private partnerships. Privatization Watch is another of the Foundation's privatization publications published quarterly. Innovators in Action is an annual publication that advocates shrinking the size and scope of government, usually through privatization. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens wrote columns for this publication in 2007.

Reason Foundation's Annual Highway Report ranks each state's transportation system on cost-effectiveness and efficiency.[12]

Reason Foundation's primary publication is the magazine, Reason, which was first published in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander,[1] and was originally an infrequently published mimeographed magazine. In 1970, Robert Poole purchased Reason with Manuel S. Klausner and Tibor R. Machan, who set the magazine on a more regular publication schedule.[13] The magazine covers politics, culture, and ideas through a mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews.

Reason and Reason Online are editorially-independent publications of the foundation.[14] Reason magazine won three Los Angeles Press Club awards in 2008.[15]

Reason Foundation cofounder Robert Poole "is credited as the first person to use the term 'privatization' to refer to the contracting-out of public services and is the author of the first-ever book on municipal privatization, Cutting Back City Hall, published by Universe Books in 1980."[7] The book was very influential, notably, by providing the intellectual support for Margaret Thatcher's privatization efforts in the United Kingdom.[8] Thatcher wrote in the foundation's Annual Privatization Report 2006, "State control is fundamentally bad because it denies people the power to choose and the opportunity to bear responsibility for their own actions. Conversely, privatisation shrinks the power of the state and free enterprise enlarges the power of the people."[16]

The Reason Foundation supports the privatization of (or public-private partnerships for) almost all government functions. Leonard Gilroy, Reason Foundation's director of government reform, describes privatization as "a strategy to lower the costs of government and achieve higher performance and better outcomes for tax dollars spent."[17] Gilroy also notes that "If badly executed, privatization like any other policy can fail. Taxpayers are no better off, and may be worse off, if a service is moved from a government agency to an incompetent or inefficient private business."[17]

Reason is engaged in several transportation policy endeavors. (Foundation cofounder Robert Poole serves as the director of transportation policy.) According to the New York Times, "[f]or 17 years, Mr. Poole has been the chief theorist for private solutions to gridlock. His ideas are now embraced by officials from Sacramento to Washington."[18]

The Galvin Mobility Project has led to the production of studies on the causes of congestion, such as the book "Mobility First: A New Vision for Transportation in a Globally Competitive Twenty-First Century" by Reason Foundation's director of urban growth and land use policy, Sam Staley.

Reason Foundation advocates for education reform through expanded school choice initiatives. Reason's director of education and child welfare, Lisa Snell, authored a study in 2009 entitled Weighted Student Formula Yearbook 2009, which examined school districts using student-based "backpack funding."[19] Snell is also: "an advisory board member to the National Quality Improvement Center for the Children’s Bureau; on the charter school accreditation team for the American Academy for Liberal Education; and serves as a board member for the California Virtual Academy."[20]

In 2006, Reason Foundation issued a report criticizing a municipal Wi-Fi project iProvo in Provo, Utah as financially unstable and ineffective at lowering Internet costs or raising broadband use.[21] iProvo proponents responded vigorously with a white paper rebutting Reason's conclusions.[22]

In 2008, Reason issued a follow-up report entitled, iProvo Revisited: Another Year and Still Struggling. According to Reason, the predictions in its first report had proven true: "iProvo's total losses are likely to exceed $10 million by the end of this fiscal year – and that figure doesn't include the $39.5 million borrowed to launch the project, most of which still needs to be paid back."[23] Reason called for the city to "cut its losses" and sell the network to a private company. Shortly after the 2008 report was issued, the mayor of Provo, Lewis Billings, who had been highly critical of the Reason reports, announced that iProvo would in fact be sold to a private enterprise, Broadweave, for $40 million.[24]

In 2005, Reason magazine's science writer Ronald Bailey wrote a column declaring that climate change is both real and anthropogenic. He wrote, "Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up. All data sets – satellite, surface, and balloon – have been pointing to rising global temperatures."[25]

In 2006, Bailey wrote an article entitled "Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore: Actually no one paid me to be wrong about global warming. Or anything else."[26] In the article Bailey explains how increasing public rebuff changed his mind on climate change.

The Reason Foundation was critical of the cost of the war in Iraq. Reason magazine's May 2008 cover story, "Trillion Dollar War",[27] discussed what it viewed as the dubious ways in which the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have been funded by Congress, the military–industrial complex, and the Bush administration.

On August 25, 2010, ReasonTV published a video entitled, "Wheat, Weed and Obamacare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful", as part of an effort to question the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as Obamacare.[4] The video has been credited with popularizing the argument in conservative circles that PPACA's individual mandate to buy health insurance is constitutionally equivalent to requiring consumers to buy particular types of fruits or vegetables.[4] This argument was ultimately articulated by Justice Antonin Scalia, who suggested during oral argument of the PPACA cases that if Congress has the power to require Americans to buy health insurance, then "Therefore, you can make people buy broccoli."[4]