Koch plan for social change; Cato Institute; Institute for Humane Studies; Mercatus Center

With Cato and the Institute for Humane Studies, the Kochs checked off the first item on Fink's shopping list for social change -- institutions that could hatch scholarly ideas in line with their own thinking. The Mercatus Center checked off the second item, a more practical organization aimed at promoting these ideas into action. Its location, just across the Potomac from the Capitol, was a bonus, enabling its fellows to testify regularly as independent experts at congressional hearings. By 2004, The Wall Street Journal dubbed it "the most important think tank you've never heard of" and noted that fourteen of the twenty-three regulations that President George W. Bush placed on a "hit list" had been suggested by Mercatus scholars. Eight of those were environmental protections. (186)