DeLong Smackdown Watch: Robert Greenstein on Think-Tank Effectiveness
As I said, I don't want to argue that CBPP or TPC or CEPR have underperformed, all I want to do is say that CAP has overperformed.
Whimper...
Robert Greenstein:
Washington Thinktanks in the Twenty-First Century: I greatly admire Brad DeLong’s economic expertise and analytical work. But, with all due respect, I think that his August 20 blogpost on the effectiveness of Washington think tanks missed some key points. (I would have written in response to his post much more quickly, but I’ve been traveling and have had limited access to the internet.)
DeLong seems to equate effectiveness mainly with media coverage, buzz in the blogosphere, and so on. But when it comes to shaping policy, that’s just part of the process. In my view, the truest test of an organization’s effectiveness is whether, through its efforts, policy improves or adverse policies are avoided. Measured that way, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) — if you’ll allow me a moment of immodesty — is widely regarded by independent observers as having one of the most impressive track records among organizations that work on public policy.
For example, about $215 billion of the $787 billion stimulus law that the Administration and Congress enacted this year stemmed from ideas in our analyses or from polices that we designed — including many provisions to expand assistance for low- and moderate-income families as well as to provide state fiscal relief. Two pivotal Center analyses from last fall — showing the very large increase in poverty that would result from the recession and the stunning dimensions of state fiscal gaps — also played critical roles in helping to shape the public debate and the thinking of federal policymakers. The law devoted more resources to these matters than any previous stimulus bill in history.
Or, to take another example, at the start of 2008, every major climate-change bill would have boosted poverty substantially due to the increases in energy prices that it would have generated. We issued analyses that focused attention on this problem. And we designed a remedy that many members of Congress and policy organizations rallied around — one that is included in House-passed legislation and that the Congressional Budget Office says will fully shield the bottom fifth of the population from these higher energy prices.
Nor are our impacts limited to low-income issues. The National Journal described the Center as constituting the “cerebellum” of the successful efforts to stop President Bush’s privatization proposal for Social Security. The White House official in charge of Social Security for Bush later said that no organization was as effective in thwarting the Administration’s privatization plans as CBPP.
In addition, our policy impact extends to the state level, where we partnered with several funders to establish an effective network of 31 independent policy institutions that work on budgets, taxes, and social programs in their states. When anti-tax, anti-government groups put money and muscle in 2006 into an effort to pass ballot initiatives in 16 states to impose severe tax and spending limitations, CBPP and this network helped lead the opposition, produced the key analyses, and performed extensive public education and media outreach work. In the end, the anti-tax, anti-spending effort failed in all 16 states.
DeLong is surely right that CAP — which I greatly admire — outdistances other policy organizations in the extent to which its messages reach key audiences across the country. The Center’s work complements that of CAP and other policy organizations with the powerful effects that we have on specific policy debates and outcomes.
The impacts that I’m describing have been confirmed in a variety of independent assessments of non-profit organizations. Just last year, a survey of thousands of non-profit CEOs across the country culminated in Forces for Good, an Aspen Institute-published book, which identified the Center as among the 12 most effective non-profits in America. That survey included non-profits across the political spectrum, and it included both policy organizations and those that deliver services. That finding mirrors earlier surveys in which executive and legislative branch officials and journalists were asked to rate policy organizations on their effectiveness and consistently put the Center among the very top rated organizations.
A final note: the CEPR survey of media citations per budget dollar cited in some comments to DeLong’s August 20 post is problematic with respect to CBPP. The survey uses budget numbers that include, among other things, the costs of the extensive assistance that we provide to our state network, our entire international budget project (which works to improve budget deliberations in poor countries), and the budget of a nonprofit for which we serve as the fiscal agent. Together, those items represent about half of our budget. Comparing our media cites per budget dollar to those of other organizations that do not serve similar functions is like comparing apples to oranges. Moreover, media cites do not tell the full story of how policy organizations can shape media coverage and public debate. Organizations like the Center often have their greatest impact when editorial writers, columnists, and others use their policy conclusions and numbers without even citing the source of the information.
Everything Robert Greenstein writes is true.
