# Reason Foundation The **Reason Foundation** is a Los Angeles–based libertarian think tank founded in 1978, best known to the general public as the publisher of ***Reason* magazine** — the principal libertarian opinion outlet in the United States. The Foundation's policy work covers transportation, education (especially [[School Choice]]), pension reform, drug policy, criminal justice, and regulation. Within the think-tank ecosystem, Reason sits in the **libertarian band** alongside the [[Cato Institute]] and the [[Mercatus Center]]. It is one of the older libertarian institutions — predating Cato (1977) by only a year — and is part of the broader Koch-aligned policy infrastructure, though with somewhat more editorial independence than Cato has historically had on cultural and lifestyle issues (drug legalization, sex work, immigration). ## Founding and History Reason Foundation was incorporated in 1978 in Los Angeles as the institutional home for *Reason* magazine, which had been founded as a small libertarian publication in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander. The Foundation's first president was Robert Poole, an aerospace engineer who became one of the principal architects of late-20th-century transportation privatization policy — toll-road concessions, airport privatization, and infrastructure public-private-partnerships are substantially Reason intellectual products. The org expanded into education policy in the 1990s and is now one of the most consistent institutional voices for [[School Choice]] — vouchers, education savings accounts (ESAs), and tax-credit scholarships. Researchers like [[Corey DeAngelis]] cycled through Reason as part of the broader school-choice fellow circuit ([[Cato Institute]] → Reason → [[American Federation for Children]] → [[Heritage Foundation]]) that produced much of the 2020s ESA-wave intellectual scaffolding. ## Policy Focus - **Transportation policy** — toll roads, congestion pricing, airport privatization, transit reform; Robert Poole's specialty area - **Education** — school choice, vouchers, ESAs, charter schools - **Pension reform** — public-employee pension overhaul, especially at the state and municipal levels - **Drug policy** — drug legalization (cannabis, harm-reduction approaches) - **Criminal justice** — sentencing reform, mass incarceration critique - **Regulation** — deregulation across sectors; cost-benefit analysis The pension-reform work has been especially influential at the state level: Reason researchers have consulted directly with state legislatures on pension restructuring (a niche where Reason has more practical policy impact than Cato). ## Reason Magazine and the "Free Minds and Free Markets" Brand *Reason* magazine is the most widely read libertarian publication in the U.S. — print circulation ~50,000 with substantially larger online reach. The magazine and its Reason.tv video arm function as the **cultural-libertarian** front-of-house: drug legalization, civil-liberties skepticism of the surveillance state, immigration permissiveness, free speech, and cultural-libertarianism positions that distinguish *Reason*'s libertarianism from the more economics-focused [[Cato Institute]] output and from the [[Heritage Foundation]] / [[Claremont Institute]] conservatism on the right. This editorial breadth means *Reason* often publishes positions sharply at odds with MAGA conservatism — pro-immigration, anti-drug-war, skeptical of executive surveillance, opposed to anti-trans legislation — while remaining consistent with libertarian deregulation, school choice, and tax policy. ## Funding Reason Foundation is funded by a mix of: - Individual libertarian donors - Koch-connected foundations and the broader [[Koch Network]] - [[DonorsTrust]] - Corporate sponsors (transportation, tech) - [[Atlas Network]] partner-network grants Funding patterns are consistent with the broader Koch-libertarian policy ecosystem, though Reason has historically preserved meaningful editorial independence on the cultural-libertarian issues that Koch operations did not directly prioritize. ## KB Significance Reason is the **California libertarian anchor** in the U.S. think-tank ecosystem. Its three primary contributions to the KB story: 1. **The school-choice pipeline** — Reason is one of the standard rotation stops for school-choice researchers (DeAngelis, Lindsey Burke, etc.), making it a load-bearing institution in the [[School Choice]] movement's intellectual infrastructure. 2. **Transportation privatization** — the policy-realization arm of the broader [[Neoliberalism]] privatization agenda at the state and municipal level. 3. **The cultural-libertarian/MAGA-conservative fault line** — Reason illustrates that "the right" is not monolithic; on immigration, drugs, surveillance, and civil liberties, Reason and MAGA conservatism are in active opposition. ## See Also - [[Cato Institute]] — peer libertarian think tank - [[Mercatus Center]] — Koch-funded academic libertarian shop - [[Mont Pelerin Society]] — root node of the broader libertarian intellectual network - [[Atlas Network]] — global free-market think tank coordinator - [[Koch Network]] — donor ecosystem - [[Libertarianism]] — the ideological tradition - [[School Choice]] — the education-policy specialty - [[Think Tank Ecosystem]] — broader ecosystem hub