The government and political factions on both sides of the spectrum insist that free markets aren’t delivering for American workers, so government must get even more involved. But it is existing interventions—including those that fuel the high cost of health care and housing, erect barriers to upward mobility, and create many more unintended consequences—that keep capitalism and markets from working their full magic. Rather than creating more market distortions and exacerbating existing problems, government needs to give Americans the ball and get out of the way. That’s why Cato has been the foremost champion of the free market for nearly five decades—and will remain so for many decades to come. By expanding the influence of Cato’s economic policy research to reach new audiences—from the halls of Congress and universities to the living rooms and kitchen tables of American families—we are providing the most accessible, tangible, and reputable defense of capitalism and free markets.

We have made several strategic adjustments and additions to our staff and leadership to help us achieve our goals. Scott Lincicome took on a more active leadership role by serving as director of general economic research as well as director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. Alex Nowrasteh transitioned into a new role as director of economic and social policy studies, which includes working with Michael Tanner on federal welfare policy and state economic policy, Chris Edwards on spending and tax policy, and Vanessa Brown Calder on paid family leave, land use, licensing, and other policies that help shape economic opportunity at the federal and state levels. Calder returned to Cato in February 2022 after nearly three years with the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. We also brought on Norbert Michel, who most recently served as director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, to serve as vice president and director of Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Michel will focus on financial regulation—including environmental, social, and governance disclosures, Dodd-Frank reform and repeal, and financial technologies—and will oversee our monetary policy efforts. We plan to continue adding expertise and resources to our all-star lineup of policy experts defending the free economy.

Going for Broke

In addition to passing multitrillion-dollar spending packages for infrastructure and pandemic relief, the Biden administration and Congress sought large tax increases on businesses and high-earning households. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies, testified to the House Ways and Means Committee in May against the president’s tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, and he testified to the Joint Economic Committee in July on the importance of innovation to the economy and the crucial need to keep capital gains taxes low. Edwards also released major studies on the importance of wealthy angel investors and entrepreneurs in spurring economic growth and innovation, urging against new taxes and regulations. In numerous op-eds published in prominent news outlets Edwards argued for lowering taxes and spending and discussed the important role that private angel investment played in the development of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19.

Free Trade: A Catalyst for Growth

Protectionist trade policies hurt working families significantly by raising the cost of goods and services. Inventory shortages provoked by global supply chain disruptions were a direct result of the pandemic—and were worsened by regressive government policies aimed at manipulating supply and demand, suppressing investment, escalating tariffs, and shrinking the labor force. Under Scott Lincicome’s direction, Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies stands against the swell of protectionism from both sides of the aisle and promotes the crucial role that free trade plays in fostering a dynamic and vibrant economy.

As one of the nation’s leading trade policy experts, Lincicome encouraged policymakers to challenge sweeping progressive policies such as the American Rescue Plan, which stealthily passed massive spending packages. Inspired by the success of several public debates with Oren Cass and the warm reception of congressional leadership at a closed-door event in October, Lincicome is producing an innovative handbook covering how free markets benefit American workers that will be distributed to congressional offices and the public.

The impact of Cato’s research and advocacy on expanding free trade is not limited to the workings of the federal government. In Montana, Lincicome’s work was cited by a senior adviser to Gov. Greg Gianforte as a crucial underpinning of the decision to end the state’s participation in expanded unemployment benefits. Lincicome documented how the larger payments have contributed to Montana’s widespread labor shortage.

Let the Central Banker Beware

Social media and the rise of digital currency are radically changing how money can be created—much to the irritation of bureaucrats who want to bring these novel instruments under greater government control. In response to the Biden administration’s proposal for sweeping regulations to stablecoins (cryptocurrencies anchored to “stable” reserve assets, such as the U.S. dollar), Jennifer Schulp, Cato’s director of financial regulation studies, and Norbert Michel, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives (CMFA), have developed an alternative proposal that would both mitigate the risk associated with stablecoins and foster innovation in this growing sector of the modern economy. Schulp and Michel pushed back against Biden’s proposal to allow only federally insured depository institutions to issue stablecoins, which would prevent widespread use of this cryptocurrency while protecting the banking industry from competition. Instead, they propose treating stablecoin issuers as newly created limited purpose investment companies that are subject to basic reserve requirements and mandatory disclosure of relevant information about reserve holdings. In early 2022, senior fellow and CMFA director emeritus George Selgin also published a proposal calling for a more dynamic digital currency market through “narrow” stablecoins, which he argues would drive competition and a more efficient marketplace.

Their proposals were well received in numerous congressional bodies, including the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee, opening the door for further collaboration on policies designed to protect the integrity and free exchange of cryptocurrency. After lengthy discussion with Schulp, Michel, and Selgin on their work, Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R‑IN) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R‑PA) introduced stablecoin legislation that mirrored their work, and Rep. Tom Emmer (R‑MN) introduced legislation prohibiting the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency.

Freedom Is the Best Medicine

The freedom to make one’s own health care decisions is a fundamental human right. When government protects that right, innovation and competition make health care more universal—better, more affordable, and more secure. When taxes and regulations restrict that right, the availability and quality of health care suffers. Making health care more accessible and affordable reflects Cato’s larger goal to defend the free economy: doing not only what is necessary to safeguard the intrinsic value of economic freedom but also what is right to respect the dignity of individuals who deserve the freedom to make their own choices.

Cato’s efforts to expand health care freedom go back decades; our scholars first proposed health savings accounts (HSAs) in the 1990s and were leaders in popularizing them among policymakers and the public. Building on this legacy, Cato launched an ambitious strategic campaign in 2021 to reset the health care agenda in America. Director of health policy studies Michael F. Cannon is leading our initiative to provide Americans with more control of their health care dollars and health decisions by expanding HSAs, cutting government out of Medicare enrollees’ medical decisions, and removing barriers to health care innovation and competition.

In 2021, Dr. Jeffrey Singer, Cato senior fellow and a surgeon with more than 35 years of experience, advised Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s policy team on what would become the enactment of Arizona’s landmark telehealth reform law. The law allows Arizona patients to access telehealth services from any health care professional across the country, regardless of whether those providers hold an Arizona license. In October, Singer and senior vice president for policy Gene Healy hosted Gov. Ducey for a policy discussion at Cato exploring Arizona’s leadership in enacting market-based health care reform.

Cato lays the intellectual foundation for sound pro-liberty ideas. We are now poised to advance these ideas in new ways, which include an expanded focus on targeted and strategic external outreach and engagement with government, media, and the academy. In an era characterized by division and dissonance, our work draws large bipartisan and cross-ideological appeal, further expanding the reach of our ideas among new and diverse audiences. Our enterprising external affairs team proactively drives engagement with our work using a two-pronged approach, maximizing our exposure to policymakers and stakeholders at both the federal and state levels and bolstering Cato’s reputation as the premier resource for libertarian ideas for a truly nationwide audience. By strengthening our inroads with policymakers at both the state and federal levels while building up our staff of externally focused experts, Cato will ensure that the best ideas rise to the forefront of policy debates while continuously expanding the reach and scope of our work.

Cato holds a reputation as one of the loudest voices for liberty in Washington—a reputation that is more valuable now than ever. We build this credibility on a principled track record and with our ceaseless efforts to recruit the best and brightest policy experts, such as Mark Calabria, who returned to Cato following his roles as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence. Previously our director of financial regulation, Calabria now serves as a senior adviser to provide strategic input on federal economic policy and to help guide more meaningful engagement with policymakers at the federal level.

Director of government and external affairs Jeff Vanderslice and director of state relations Chris Hansford oversee Cato’s ever-growing itinerary of engagement with policymakers, activists, and organizations at both the federal and state levels. Vanderslice and his team play a key role in connecting Cato scholars with relevant policy channels on Capitol Hill and in the administration, offering policymakers and staff timely information on the most pressing issues facing their offices. In 2021, Cato experts provided 28 congressional and executive commission testimonies and statements for the record—up from the previous year’s 16 testimonies—on a host of policy issues, including fiscal and regulatory reform, health care, and immigration. With the investment of more resources into our strategic outreach to policymakers, we will further grow the demand on Capitol Hill and in executive agencies for our research and policy proposals.

A Growing Voice for Liberty

One of 2021’s most prominent congressional hearings featured Jennifer Schulp, director of financial regulation studies, who quickly became a leading expert and significant media presence on individual investing when the price of GameStop’s stock, and so-called meme stocks, soared to record heights. She testified before the House Committee on Financial Services alongside the CEOs of Robinhood Markets Inc., Citadel Securities, and Melvin Capital Management LP, as well as the Redditor “Roaring Kitty” (the individual investor credited with leading the GameStop surge). Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde remarked, “[Schulp] really caught everyone’s attention with the depth of knowledge she had about payment for order flow and transparency in the market.”

Clark Neily, Cato’s senior vice president for legal studies, testified in March before the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on courts about his research into the background experience of federal judges and the overrepresentation of former prosecutors and other advocates for the government. His study on this problem was also cited in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing by its chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D‑IL). In May, President Biden notably nominated three former public defenders to serve as federal appellate judges.

The Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies advocates a judiciary that rises above political quarreling and is limited to interpreting, not making, the law. In April, Ilya Shapiro, then director of the center, testified before the Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, where he pushed back against efforts by partisan interests to influence the Supreme Court and urged the importance of its independence: “Because of a Constitution that’s classically liberal, the Supreme Court is one of the few friends in government for advocates for liberty.” Shapiro was also invited to testify before the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court in July, where he argued that the politicization of the confirmation process undermines the Court’s check on legislative and executive overreach.

In the fall, Cato launched its Congressional Fellowship Program with a two-month seminar in legal studies, which offers congressional staffers an in-depth exploration of the philosophical roots and practical application of constitutional law from a libertarian perspective. The inaugural program hosted a diverse, bipartisan group of 26 congressional policy staff members over nine sessions from October to December 2021; these featured lectures and roundtable discussions on various topics in constitutional law, including an overview of the First Amendment and free speech by Cato vice president John Samples and former American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen. The program received glowing reviews from participants and represents another vehicle for Cato’s enhanced engagement with Capitol Hill in the years ahead.

Cato also continues to make significant investment to drive pointed, high-quality, state-based projects. Chris Hansford, director of state relations, spearheads this initiative by connecting scholars with state-level policymakers, activists, business leaders, and other stakeholders and by representing the breadth of Cato’s work at policy conferences, summits, symposiums, and other events across the country. In 2021, Cato engaged more than 300 state legislators, staff members, and advocates on issues including transportation funding, school choice, criminal justice reform, and housing. Hansford and his team advised governors’ offices and consulted senior staff on recent landmark pieces of state legislation, such as Arizona’s first-in-the-nation expansion of telemedicine across state lines. The impact of Cato scholars at the state level is ongoing and growing, and it includes other efforts such as proposed private infrastructure legislation in Texas, educational savings accounts to expand school choice in New Hampshire, and the permanent legalization of cocktails-to-go in Florida.

Reviving the California Dream

Cato’s Project on Poverty and Inequality in California, launched in 2019, provides an example of Cato’s ongoing innovation in our outreach initiatives.

California was once a true land of opportunity, but regressive state policies have rendered the so-called California dream a nightmare by causing obscene inflation in the cost of living. Despite its high concentration of wealth, power, and global influence, California has the highest homeless population and poverty rate in the nation. Rather than cultivating a climate that encourages economic growth and upward mobility, the state government has doubled down on a litany of rules, restrictions, regulations, and red tape that have exacerbated the hardship felt by millions of its residents.

Cato’s Project on Poverty and Inequality in California—led by senior fellow Michael Tanner—explored how state government policies intended to help low-income Californians actually trapped them in cycles of poverty. The project team traveled extensively throughout the state to conduct field research on the crisis and developed an ideologically diverse coalition of business and policy leaders, academics, activists, and philanthropists. And importantly, the team listened to and spoke with Californians living in poverty, offering key insights into the human element of the state’s ongoing crisis.

In October 2021, Tanner and his team released their final report on the project’s research findings and a list of 24 pro-liberty policy recommendations covering housing, welfare, education, licensing laws, and other issues. The report was delivered to every member of California’s congressional delegation and state legislature, as well as every mayor, city manager, city councilor, county supervisor, and county welfare director in the state. The project team spearheaded the release of the report with two major in-person conferences in Sacramento and Los Angeles, both featuring a lineup of leading policymakers, social activists, and other stakeholders from across the ideological spectrum. The Los Angeles event was headlined by a luncheon address from its mayor, Eric Garcetti, who credited the report for its policy innovation as well as for its ability to bridge the ideological gap that has halted meaningful efforts to alleviate poverty. Speakers and panelists from the Sacramento conference included state senators Melissa Hurtado (D‑Hanford) and Sydney Kamlager (D‑Los Angeles), state assembly member Kevin Kiley (R‑Rocklin), California Forward CEO Micah Weinberg, and California Business Roundtable president Robert Lapsley.

The project is already making headway in changing policy in California for the better. Two recently passed bills will further enfranchise and empower Californians, including one that allows homeowners to subdivide residential lots and build duplexes, and another that compels prosecutors to use gang-related sentencing additions more judiciously when necessary to protect public safety. We look forward to building on our success in California to launch similar initiatives in other states battling similar issues.

With Liberty and Justice for All

In 2018, Cato launched its campaign to end qualified immunity (QI). In just three years, Cato’s work bolstered this once-obscure legal concept into a household term. Today, QI—which protects police officers and state actors from being held accountable under the law when they violate citizens’ rights—is at the center of criminal justice reform efforts and a central topic in national policy conversations. Thanks to the efforts of our criminal justice team, the majority of Americans—63 percent—now support abolishing qualified immunity.

Senior vice president for legal studies Clark Neily and research fellow Jay Schweikert have made Cato the go-to organization for information and assistance on QI reform by filing amicus briefs in the courts, meeting with legislators and their staff, and working to get the issue in front of the public to make this niche legal concept accessible to everyday Americans. The team forged close working relationships with an ideologically diverse group of policymakers, including Sen. Tim Scott (R‑SC), Rep. Karen Bass (D‑CA), and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D‑TX). Speaking with Don Lemon on CNN, Sen. Cory Booker (D‑NJ) cited Cato as a leading organization on QI reform. In June, Cato was instrumental in assembling a diverse coalition of civil rights organizations—including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Black Police Experience, the Drug Policy Alliance, and Human Rights Watch—that released a joint statement urging Congress to adopt meaningful QI reform.

The project also promotes QI reform at the state level. In 2021, New Mexico and New York City passed legislation creating state-level civil rights remedies that preclude qualified immunity as a defense. Cato played an integral role in prescribing the ideas behind both pieces of legislation. In New Mexico, Schweikert testified before the state senate and held several private policy briefing calls with key members of the legislature. Meanwhile, he engaged then New York City council member Steve Levin—the sponsor of the city’s QI bill—on various policy approaches to local QI reform. Levin has since credited Cato for “leading the charge around the country” on QI reform. The criminal justice team also engaged state policymakers in New Hampshire and Maryland, opening the door for further collaboration.

We are living in an unprecedented era of technological innovation, and the Cato Institute is seizing this incredible opportunity to leverage our capacity for innovation and amplify our voice for liberty not just in the United States but around the world. The Institute is growing our creative Content Lab and communications teams, testing innovative publishing technologies, and launching new online tools. The goal is to immerse individuals, students, and policy leaders in visual stories that dynamically bring our ideas to life through videos, podcasts, social media, and leading-edge data visualizations. We are blazing our own trail to bring the message of liberty from the pages of classic texts and into the digital world, immortalized for generations to come.

Building and maintaining a first-rate digital infrastructure requires an exceptionally talented and innovative web development staff. Our Content Lab team, led by vice president and chief digital officer Steve Kurtz, spearheads this effort.

In February 2021, we launched the re-design of Cato​.org with best-in-class digital and interactive capabilities. The new website is sleek, modern, significantly easier to search and navigate, and modular in design so that we can easily highlight different types of content on any page. Since the launch of the new website, pages consumed per visit increased by nearly 8 percent, and the average visit duration increased by nearly 53 percent. The redesign also helps drive more engagement on Cato’s social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn; pages consumed via social media rose by more than 7 percent, and the average visit duration increased by 35 percent.

Transforming Data: From Conventional to Compelling

The redesign also upgrades our capacity for publishing research and analyses through a dynamic suite of content, including infographics, illustrations, and interactive polls. Moreover, our digital overhaul allows us to produce new and exciting content while improving and refining Cato’s existing library of research with enhanced navigation and accessible data sets.

Public polling is an important tool for understanding what motivates Americans to support (or not support) certain policies. Emily Ekins, vice president and director of polling, has a reputation for producing high-quality, in-depth surveys and analyses of Cato poll data. Our ongoing digital transformation allows users to interact with her data, drill deeper into her findings, and understand Americans’ attitudes about the most pressing policy debates in far greater detail than ever before.

In 2021, Ekins published two survey reports incorporating our new web features. The 2021 Immigration and Identity National Survey polled 2,600 Americans to discover their underlying beliefs on immigration policy. Meanwhile, the 2021 Speech and Social Media National Survey polled 2,000 Americans and found that most believe social media companies are actively undermining free speech through unfair content moderation. Both survey reports were published online with a dedicated interactive webpage featuring data visualizations, survey toplines, and downloadable data sets. Ekins also authored blog posts summarizing the findings of each poll. Both polls were cited widely on regional and national radio and television outlets.

One of the most consequential moments of 2021 was the official end of the war in Afghanistan, which now holds the dishonorable distinction of being the longest war in American history. In the two decades of fighting, Cato has been a consistent (and often lonely) critic of Washington’s strategy in the Middle East, as well as a fierce opponent of expanded executive war powers and domestic surveillance programs. Thanks to our consistent voice as a proponent of restraint in Washington, many foreign policy experts have joined us in advocating less military intervention abroad. As a refresher on our work in this area, we launched a new section on Cato​.org cataloging 20 years of our research and commentary on the war on terror. With the launch and promotion of this new webpage to both policymakers and the public, we hope that these tragic policy mistakes are not repeated.

Broadcasting Freedom at Home and Abroad

The upgrades to Cato’s digital presence are not limited to the redesign of the Cato website. We have also invested heavily in developing engaging multimedia products of both higher quantity and quality. For example, the Project on Poverty and Inequality in California produced a 30-minute documentary film exploring common-sense solutions to the state’s housing and homelessness crises, featuring interviews with business leaders, social activists, and scholars across the ideological spectrum. The film received widespread critical acclaim: in December, it won a Gold Award for Best Short Documentary from the Hollywood Gold Awards and was selected to be screened at both the New York Movie Awards and the Oregon Documentary Film Festival, where it won Best Editing and was runner-up for Best Documentary. Cato assistant producer and videographer Lena Popilieva also took home bronze for Best Female Director from the Independent Short Awards. By expanding our Content Lab, we will further reinforce our filmmaking and editing capabilities to produce other cinematic-quality videos.

Podcasts have emerged as one of the most accessible and popular forms of media consumption around the world. Cato has been at the cutting edge of this revolution for nearly two decades, with a wide range of audio selections covering public policy, philosophy, and even pop culture. One of our most successful shows—not just among audio platforms but across all Cato media—is the Cato Daily Podcast, hosted by Caleb O. Brown, director of multimedia, and featuring discussions on current news items with Cato scholars, top policymakers, and other prominent individuals. Noteworthy guests in 2021 include author Matt Ridley, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, and many members of Congress, including Reps. Jim McGovern (D‑MA), Peter Meijer (R‑MI), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D‑NJ), and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R‑WA). The Cato Daily Podcast continues to grow year after year, with nearly 270 episodes recorded and more than five million downloads in 2021. Our podcasts are easily accessible on the redesigned Cato​.org homepage, various social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The expansion of our digital and multimedia capabilities is reflective of Cato’s global reach. Senior fellow Mustafa Akyol has become one of the world’s leading experts on the intersection of Islam, public policy, and modernity. The United Kingdom’s Prospect magazine ranked Akyol among the world’s top 50 thinkers, and a readers’ poll placed him in the top 10. Other notable top thinkers include American entrepreneur Elon Musk, British primatologist Jane Goodall, and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In April Akyol’s book Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance was published by St. Martin’s Essentials, offering a diagnosis of the “crisis of Islam” in the modern world and making the case for a return to its liberal tradition. Reopening Muslim Minds has received widespread acclaim—especially across the Muslim world. Renowned Algerian physicist Nidhal Guessoum called it “the best book about Islam this year,” while Indonesian publishing company Penerbit Mizan Pustaka ranked it the number-one book on Islam in 2021. Bosnian, Arabic, and Farsi editions of the book were released, and the Indonesian edition is being translated. Akyol spoke at more than 35 in-person and online panels at universities and other organizations in the United States, the UK, Tunisia, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Maldives, and he was featured or cited in prominent outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

In the thick of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine wrote, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace; and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.” Protecting and promoting freedom isn’t just a hobby or even a job for us at Cato but an obligation—not only to ourselves but to the generations yet to come who deserve to live in a freer, fairer, healthier, and wealthier world. Fulfilling our vision of a freer tomorrow demands that we empower young leaders and educate them in libertarian thought and public policy issues. We accomplish this through innovative programs that inspire middle school, high school, and college students and educators across the country to keep the flame of liberty alive.

Restoring Dialogue,
Rescuing Democracy

Many Americans are fed up with the intense tribal culture fueled by the extreme left and right, and they are actively looking for tools and resources to help find common ground and restore appreciation for healthy debate and disagreement. Cato’s long-standing reputation for nonpartisanship and engaging across the ideological divide makes us uniquely suited to address these needs. That is why we launched Project Sphere—a suite of programs designed to cool the temperature of public discourse. A key component of this project is the Sphere Education Initiative, which is building a vast network of educators and providing content they can use in the classroom to address this challenging political environment. Sphere has already built a community of more than 2,500 educators from across the nation, who in turn have helped us reach more than 250,000 students. Our goal is to grow this network to 8,000 educators and reach a million students by 2024.

Last summer, Cato hosted its third annual Sphere Summit, offering full-scholarship programs for more than 300 educators and administrators. Held over two weeklong sessions in June and July, the Summit hosted educators both in-person at the Cato Institute and virtually via livestream for a diverse and dynamic program covering a range of issues, including free speech, the future of democracy, and the consequences of pandemic-era government interference in the economy. Participants engaged with an ideologically diverse group of policymakers, thought leaders, academics, and journalists, including Darrell M. West of the Brookings Institution; Daniel Garza of the LIBRE Initiative; Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review and the American Enterprise Institute; Reps. Lou Correa (D‑CA), Young Kim (R‑CA), and Peter Meijer (R‑MI); Irshad Manji, director of the Moral Courage Project; and Jane Coaston, host of the New York Times podcast The Argument. They also received professional development workshops and trainings from other leading organizations, including iCivics, the Bill of Rights Institute, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Feedback on the Summit was extremely positive, with 96 percent of participants reporting that the Summit contributed to restoring civic culture and 98 percent saying they would recommend the Summit to a colleague. Many participants praised Cato for its programming and professionalism. “Thank you for giving me so many wonderful ideas, resources, and most importantly hope for civil conversations among people with different perspectives,” said 2021 Sphere participant Patricia Russac, a middle school history teacher in New York. “The Summit certainly lived up to its theme, ‘Teaching Civic Culture Together.’”

Thanks to Cato Sponsors, we are scaling the success of the Sphere Summits by taking Sphere directly to educators and students through Sphere on the Road. This program provides a host of opportunities to develop content, gather feedback, distribute resources, and, most importantly, build meaningful relationships and further expand the Sphere network. The Sphere team is also traveling to present and promote Sphere—as well as reach educators—at conferences such as the Florida Council for the Social Studies and the Philanthropy Roundtable annual meeting, both of which the team participated in this past October. To facilitate the expansion of this project, Cato added Caryn Rossiter as a manager and senior trainer. Rossiter has over two decades of experience as an educator, having served as a senior class dean and an AP history and economics teacher at a private school in Dallas and as an education specialist for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Critically, Rossiter is also a Sphere alumna—she was so impressed with the project and the 2019 Summit that she decided to quit her teaching job to join the team in 2021. Rossiter is helping to grow our portfolio of programming and lesson plans with a particular emphasis on content development and the successful execution of our Sphere on the Road initiative.

(Good) Ideas Matter

It is all too easy to take for granted the promise of freedom, or else to entirely lose sight of its inherent value. The next generation of libertarian leaders must be equipped with a strong theoretical foundation. Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org is an indispensable resource for educating the young on the history, philosophy, and ideas of classical liberalism and libertarianism. As one of Cato’s most popular sites, Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org continues to expand its reach and scope to new audiences with its rich library of digital and print media, attracting nearly 1.4 million visitors in 2021. Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org also publishes books, including Mustafa Akyol’s Why, as a Muslim, I Defend Liberty—a manifesto on the natural compatibility of liberal values and Islam— and Alex Nowrasteh’s The Most Common Arguments against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong, an innovative piece geared toward reaching younger audiences through succinct summaries and easy-to-follow visualizations providing evidence-based counterarguments to anti-immigrant sentiments. Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org remains at the forefront of policy debates by offering the libertarian stance on a variety of topics dominating our social and cultural discourse.

In an era plagued by clickbait headlines and yellow journalism, the young are being driven to believe that the world is fundamentally broken and that we need more government intervention in our lives to fix it. But hard facts clearly demonstrate that the opposite is true—the world is actually healthier, wealthier, cleaner, and safer today than at any other time in history. The global proliferation of personal and economic freedom has been and continues to be the greatest engine for progress in history. Cato has an obligation to ensure that this truth is not lost for our children. Human​progress​.org is the premier source for nonideological, fact-based research and analysis delivering a wholly optimistic vision for the future rooted in the principles of liberty. The website’s board features an all-star lineup of academics and economists, including Nobel Prize–winning economists Angus Deaton and Vernon Smith, as well as famed scholars Andrew McAfee, Matt Ridley, and Steven Pinker. The site’s two ongoing series, Centers of Progress and Heroes of Progress—which commemorate great innovators and landmark milestones in the history of human progress—are being synthesized into educational lesson plans for high school students. The lesson plans have been accessed by hundreds of high school students nationwide, and the website is being used by many universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles; the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania; and Princeton University.

In August 2020, Cato published its first coffee table book, Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know. Coauthored by Human​Progress​.org editor Marian Tupy, Ten Global Trends offers a comprehensive and concise illustration of just how much we have achieved in the modern era. It is now the bestselling book in Cato’s history and reached Amazon.com’s Top 100 titles in 2021. It has received widespread critical acclaim from academics and thought leaders across the ideological spectrum. Following its release, Tupy was invited by renowned clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson for a discussion of the book on his podcast, which has garnered more than 1.3 million views on YouTube.

Launching the Next Generation of Libertarian Leaders

The Cato internship program is known for being one of the most competitive in Washington, DC. In 2021, Cato received 1,833 applications for just 78 intern placements—a roughly 4 percent acceptance rate. The prestige of our internship is due not only to Cato’s reputation but also to our first-rate curriculum and professional development program. Cato interns gain invaluable knowledge and experience by working one-on-one with some of the most talented and reputable policy scholars in their respective fields. Through the John Russell Paslaqua Intern Seminar Series, interns also attend world-class lectures on policy and philosophy, as well as professional development workshops on topics such as public speaking and journalism.

Reaching younger audiences is a long- term process, but we’ve already found success in building the next generation of champions for liberty—such as David McMillan, who interned with Cato’s criminal justice team last summer. David says his experience at Cato transformed his political views. Once a self-described Democrat, he now proudly calls himself a libertarian: “I now identify as an individualist, which is the same label that Friedrich Hayek used to distinguish himself from collectivists. As a member of Generation Z, I am proud to be a new member of the liberty movement.”

And we continue to share copies of our Cato Pocket Constitution and Declaration of Independence—one of the most popular editions of our nation’s founding documents, with over seven million copies in circulation—with teachers and students across the country. One such student, Mateo Portelli, received his first Cato Pocket Constitution in the seventh grade and has been an avid follower of Cato’s work ever since. Now a first-generation college student serving in the National Guard, Mateo supports Cato as a member of our monthly giving program, the Voluntary Society—an exclusive community of like-minded individuals who give at least $10 per month. Mateo ex-plains his motivation for becoming a monthly Sponsor of the Institute: “I love that Cato isn’t only concerned with convincing policymakers to respect the principles and ideas of liberty—they also educate the public. And that includes young people and Gen‑Z students like myself.”

David and Mateo are just two examples of Cato’s ongoing efforts to reach younger audiences, made possible only through the generous support of Cato Sponsors. By sharing the rich history and tradition of libertarian ideas, we can help young people discover the values that matter most to them. With the continued support of our generous Sponsors, we will ensure that the message and promise of freedom reaches and resonates with future generations.