Arnold Schwarzenegger swore that California suffered from the nation’s
highest workers’ compensation liabilities, energy costs and “all of those things
that drive business away.” The Gray Davis camp rebutted that eight of the 15
most business-friendly cities in the U.S. were in California. What was odd about
these particular assertions in the 2003 gubernatorial special election was that
both Davis and Schwarzenegger were referring to research from the same think
tank: the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, Calif.
Earlier that year,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had cited a report by the Milken Institute on
the financial toll of the 9/11 attacks in his testimony to the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to justify the cost of the Iraq war.
The Milken Institute’s work, unlike those of advocacy think tanks, was not
designed to influence the outcome of the California election or to shape U.S.
military strategy. But Michael Milken is happy to see the institute’s work
contributing to the public debate in each of these cases. While some think tank
benefactors might oppose the use of their apolitical analyses for partisan
purposes, Milken says that when both sides cite his institute’s research, it
must truly be having an impact.
Milken is scrupulously nonpartisan when it comes to his personal politics. He
takes no public positions on partisan issues, and he does not support individual
candidates. He seeks out national political leaders from both parties to advance
the causes he supports. His is an example of how a nonideological think tank can
have a profound effect on national debate and policy. “You have to create an
environment where ideas flourish, and that’s why we’re not partisan,” Milken
says. “We don’t want people to think ‘Hey, we don’t think that way around here.’
”
Milken has invested about $80 million of his own funds in the institute,
which he established 17 years ago to produce research intended to advance global
prosperity and democracy and show the value and applicability of free markets
and business principles to education and health care. “Our goal is to expose
people to new ideas, and we think that the think tank research area is the best
way to accelerate the movement of those ideas in society,” he says.
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