The National Center for Policy Analysis is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute founded in 1983 and funded exclusively by private contributions. The mission of the NCPA is to seek innovative private-sector solutions to public policy problems.

The center is probably best known for developing the concept of Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). The Wall Street Journal called NCPA President John C. Goodman "the father of Medical Savings Accounts." Sen. Phil Gramm said MSAs are "the only original idea in health policy in more than a decade." Congress approved a pilot MSA program for small businesses and the self-employed in 1996 and voted in 1997 to allow Medicare beneficiaries to have MSAs.

Congress also relied on input from the NCPA in cutting the capital gains tax rate, in creating the Roth IRA and eliminating the Social Security earnings penalty. These proposals were part of the pro-growth tax cuts agenda contained in the Contract with America and first proposed by the NCPA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1991. Two other tax changes — an increase in the estate tax exemption and abolition of the 15 percent tax penalty on excess withdrawals from pension accounts — also reflect NCPA proposals.

Another NCPA innovation is the concept of taxpayer choice — letting taxpayers rather than government decide where their welfare dollars go. Legislation to create taxpayer choice at the state level was sponsored last year by Reps. John Kasich, J.C. Watts and others. The idea is also a priority of President Bush.

Entitlement reform is another important area. With the grant from the NCPA, economists at Texas A&M University have developed a model to analyze Social Security and Medicare, and is publishing a series of studies on the future of the two entitlement programs. This work is directed by Texas A&M Professor Tom Saving, who has been appointed a Social Security and Medicare trustee. The NCPA has also established an interactive online Social Security calculator (www.mysocialsecurity.org), that allows visitors to compare their Social Security benefits with returns if they payroll taxes had instead been invested privately.

In the 1980s, the NCPA was the first public policy institute to publish a report card on public schools based on results of student achievement exams, and an NCPA task force made the case for school choice. Subsequently, the NCPA pioneered the concept of education tax credits as one route to school choice. The NCPA and Children First America have published an Education Agenda for the new administration, a book whose contributors include Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, Sen. Jon Kyl and other school choice experts.

The NCPA's Environmental Center works closely with other think tanks to provide common sense alternatives to extreme positions that frequently dominate environmental policy debates. In 1991 the NCPA organized a 76-member task force, representing 64 think tanks and research institutes, to produce Progressive Environmentalism, a pro-free enterprise, pro-science, pro-human report on environmental issues. The task force concluded that empowering individuals rather than government bureaucracies offers the greatest promise for a cleaner environment. Later, the NCPA produced New Environmentalism, written by Reason Foundation scholar Lynn Scarlett. The study proposes a framework for making the nation's environmental efforts more effective while reducing regulatory burdens. More recent publications include a pathbreaking study that showed the costs of the Kyoto protocol on global climate change would far exceed any benefits.

In 1990 the NCPA's Center for Health Policy Studies created a health care task force with representatives from 40 think tanks and research institutes. The pro-free enterprise policy proposals developed by the task force became the basis for a 1992 book, Patient Power, by John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave. More than 300,000 copies of the book were printed and distributed by the Cato Institute, and many credit it as becoming the focal point of opposition to Hillary Clinton's health care reform plan.

A number of bills before Congress promise to protect patients from abuses by HMOs and other managed care plans. Although these bills are portrayed as consumer protection measures, NCPA studies show they would make insurance more costly and increase the number of uninsured Americans. An NCPA proposal to solve the problem of the growing number of Americans without health insurance would provide refundable tax credits for those who purchase their own health insurance. The NCPA has assisted members of Congress to formulate a bipartisan tax credits proposal.

NCPA studies, ideas and experts are quoted frequently in news stories nationwide. Columns written by NCPA experts appear regularly in national publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times and Investor's Business Daily. NCPA Policy Chairman Pete du Pont has a weekly column on the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com and another weekly column distributed by the Knight-Ridder Tribune news wire. In addition, his radio commentaries reach 2.2 million listeners across America.

According to Burrelle's, the NCPA was mentioned or quoted in about 15 news articles every day somewhere in the United States in 2000. The advertising dollar equivalent of all print and broadcast coverage was more than $50 million.

The NCPA Internet site (www.ncpa.org) embraces the philosophy of one-stop shopping, linking visitors to the best available information on public policy, including studies produced by think tanks all over the world. Brittanica.com named the NCPA Web site one of the best on the Internet for quality, accuracy of content, presentation and usability.