According to its website, the foundation is committed to advancing "the values of individual freedom and choice, limited government, and market-friendly policies."
[5] Reason Foundation's policy research areas include: air traffic control, American domestic monetary policy, school choice, eminent domain, government reform, housing, land use, immigration, privatization, public–private partnerships, urban traffic and congestion, transportation, industrial hemp, medical marijuana, police raids and militarization, free trade, globalization, and telecommunications.
Reason Foundation cofounder Robert Poole is an MIT-trained engineer and the author of Cutting Back City Hall.
[1] Patricia Lynn Scarlett took over as president in 2001, but soon resigned to join the George W. Bush administration as assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget at the Department of the Interior.
[citation needed] Reason Foundation's Annual Highway Report ranks each state's transportation system on cost-effectiveness and efficiency.
In 1970, Robert Poole purchased Reason with Manuel S. Klausner and Tibor R. Machan, who set the magazine on a more regular publication schedule.
[8] Thatcher wrote in the foundation's Annual Privatization Report 2006, "State control is fundamentally bad because it denies people the power to choose and the opportunity to bear responsibility for their own actions.
Reason's director of education and child welfare, Lisa Snell, authored a study in 2009 entitled Weighted Student Formula Yearbook 2009, which examined school districts using student-based "backpack funding.
"[24] In 2006, Reason Foundation issued a report criticizing a municipal Wi-Fi project iProvo in Provo, Utah as financially unstable and ineffective at lowering Internet costs or raising broadband use.
[28] In 2005, Reason magazine's science writer Ronald Bailey wrote a column declaring that climate change is both real and anthropogenic.
Awardees include Bari Weiss, Radley Balko, Daniel Hannan, Robert Graboyes, Ross Clark, Virginia Postrel, Tom Easton, Bret Stephens, Amit Varma, Jamie Whyte, Tim Harford, Robert Guest, Brian Carney, and Amity Shlaes.
[34] One of the collaboration's first projects, Carey's video criticizing the Drug Enforcement Administration's medical marijuana raids, received significant national attention,[35] Some of his other videos for the foundation have promoted free trade; criticized the government's raids of local poker games and an Arizona attempt to ban dancing in a family restaurant (Footloose in Arizona);[36] highlighted a ban on bacon-wrapped hot dogs in Los Angeles; detailed abuse of eminent domain laws; called for more toll roads to relieve congestion; argued for deregulation of organ donation (including kidneys and other organs); and called for immigration reform.
[38] Reason Foundation and a bipartisan group of more than thirty other organizations asked all of the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates to sign a pledge promising that, if elected, they would deliver the most transparent presidency in history and guaranteeing the executive branch would adhere to the concepts of open government.
Transparency will help produce a government focused on results instead of our current system, which is plagued by secrecy, wasteful spending and pork projects.
"[39] Then-Senator Barack Obama echoed those sentiments saying, "Every American has the right to know how the government spends their tax dollars, but for too long that information has been largely hidden from public view.
This historic law will lift the veil of secrecy in Washington and ensure that our government is transparent and accountable to the American people.