Behind John Engler

Franchise Players

by Curt Guyette
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FIRST IN A SERIES:

The Big MAC Attack
How special interest groups and their think tanks waged the real Engler Revolution.

SECOND IN A SERIES:

Political Casualties
Inside Gov. John Engler's war against worker's compensation.

THIRD IN A SERIES:

Onward Christian Scholars
How Gov. John Engler and the radical right are campaining to make taxpayers fund religious schools.

SERIES HOME PAGE

Far from being an isolated phenomenon, the Mackinac Center is part of a loosely affiliated string of like-mined foundations nationwide that have mushroomed during the past 15 years.

As noted in a report put out by the national Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, at least 55 such public policy institutes have popped up in 29 states in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan's "new federalism." Sharing a strong free market, anti-government philosophy, they "represent a mix of Goldwater conservatism, libertarianism and New Right ideology."

"These think tanks," says Responsive Philanthropy's Robert O. Bothwell, "provide the rationale and local spin needed to win over sympathetic legislators to the conservative agenda."

The granddaddy of these think tanks is the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. In his bookThe Coors Connection, Detroit writer Russ Bellant describes the Heritage Foundation as "less a traditional thing tank than a propaganda center that creates justifications for preconceived positions and then professionally packages the results in a format palatable to politicians." Loosely affiliated through the Chicago-based Madison Group, the Mackinac Center and its brethren are wired into each other, into conservative legal foundations and national organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the National Rifle Association.

"Privatization is that altar at which the Madison group worships," writes Bothwell. "There are few problems too complicated for the market to handle, from poverty to education to environmental protection and health care. For most public services, it is believed the private sector not only acts more efficiently, but that it has the inalienable right to the task."