I am pleased to provide you with the fourth quarterly report and concluding report for 2003.

The National Center for Policy Analysis most important public policy idea to date has been the concept of the Roth IRA. Without the NCPA, I seriously doubt that Roth IRAs would exist today. The second most important idea is Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), also a home-grown concept. With the passage of time, HSAs may turn out to be the more important of the two.

Due to the passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill in December, HSAs are now available to 250 million non-elderly Americans. Although the NCPA did not favor the bill as a whole (the price was too high), we are delighted that HSAs are available, and NCPA experts worked with the Ways and Means Committee staff to promote them.

Of course, no sooner was the ink dry on the legislation than the political left began a campaign to repeal the HSA provision. As a result, an important activity in recent days has been to explain and defend this very important policy innovation:

• On Monday, January 12, I appeared on C-Span to discuss Health Savings Accounts.

• Right after Christmas, I wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal on HSAs, and we also helped the Wall Street Journal with its own, very positive editorial on HSAs.

• Investors Business Daily did a Q & A with NCPA Senior Fellow Devon Herrick on HSAs; and the New York Times, the National Journal and other news outlets used NCPA material on the subject.

The NCPAs most innovative project is our newly-created E-Team, designed to correct media misinformation about the effects of energy and environmental policy issues through respected commentators, briefings and informative publications. Since the E-Team effort began in June of 2003, the twenty-eight Adjunct Scholars who joined the NCPA in this effort have attained more than 20 different placements in newspapers across the country, including letters to the editor placements in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Financial Times and commentaries in Investors Business Daily and Washington Times. The E-Teams coverage amassed a circulation of 28.6 million on print news from July thru November of 2003, at an advertising dollar value of $1.7 million. Our online news coverage from this project achieved a circulation of 82 million through the Web address at eteam.ncpa.org, which currently includes links to approximately 1,561 news and research articles on many energy and environmental issues and provides access to all media articles and E-Team placements.

Our Team NCPA volunteer initiative is designed to alert the public about the nations Social Security crisis. We made a special effort this year in Iowa. Two weeks before the presidential caucuses, a Team NCPA van traveled the state of Iowa with a large question painted on each side: Whats your plan to save Social Security? Photos and highlights of the Iowa tour are posted on the Team NCPA van link online athttp://www.teamncpa.org .

The van parked in front of Rep. Dick Gephardts Countdown to Victory Event, the Howard Dean Headquarters and Senator John F. Kerrys campaign bus. The NCPA van also traveled to the Iowa State University Radio station in Des Moines, where all the candidates gathered to debate on National Public Radio.

We further promoted our efforts with the launch of a TV ad that ran about 35 to 40 times throughout the week on local Iowa stations. The ad, featuring NCPA board member and Iowa businessman Michael Whalen, argued that the $12 trillion deficit Social Security faces is being ignored by current and potential policy makers.

The Team NCPA Web site has a Candidates Corner section where each presidential candidate is on videotape giving personal positions on Social Security. Also on our Team NCPA Web site, a link was constructed solely for Iowan volunteers. Visit the Web site, http://www.teamncpa.org, to view these new postings.

NCPA ideas about public policy issues reached U.S. print, broadcast and Internet audiences nearly 1.4 billion times in 2003, with an equivalent advertising value of more than $36.7 million. Over the past year, the NCPAs main Web site, www.ncpa.org, averaged nearly 3.2 million hits per month; hits for all NCPA sites exceeded 51 million and subscribers of our five online newsletters totaled more than 14,300.

To access the NCPAs quarterly activities and clip book on-line, go to www.ncpa.org/abo/quarterly/index.html. Hard copies of media articles and clip highlights are available by calling the NCPAs Development Department and requesting specific materials.

I appreciate your commitment to our organization. With your help, the NCPA has been able to continue promoting revolutionary outreaches and shaping the nationwide debate in policy issues into the new year.

Warm regards,

John Goodman
President

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