Foundation for Rational Economics and Education
Encyclopedia
Nonpartisan
In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organization or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation....
foundation dedicated to public education on the principles of the U.S. Constitution, free-market economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, sound money
Hard money (policy)
Hard money policies are those which are opposed to fiat currency and thus in support of a specie standard, usually gold or silver, typically implemented with representative money....
, limited government
Limited government
Limited government is a government which anything more than minimal governmental intervention in personal liberties and the economy is generally disallowed by law, usually in a written constitution. It is written in the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8...
, and foreign policy
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
. It was founded in 1976 by U.S. Congressman Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...
while he was serving on the House Banking Committee, as a vehicle to increase understanding of the economic principles of a free-market society. President is Henry K. May and Vice President is Mary Jane Smith, both of Lake Jackson, Texas
Lake Jackson, Texas
Lake Jackson is a city in Brazoria County, Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. As of a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city population was 27,614....
. Current administrative contact is Lori Pyeatt of Lake Jackson.
Publications
At its inception, the foundation began publication of a monthly newsletter, Dr. Ron Paul's Freedom Report, which claimed 100,000 subscribers by 1984. It also publishes monographMonograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
s, books, and (since 1997) a new series of the monthly newsletter, Ron Paul's Freedom Report (also called just The Freedom Report).
In 1989, FREE established the National Endowment for Liberty (NEFL) in order to develop programs that take advantage of electronic media. NEFL developed and produced the At Issue television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
that was seen on the Discovery Network
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
and CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
, which examines American institutional interaction with Constitutional principles. The endowment has received three grants from the Rodney Fund, operated by Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a free market think tank headquartered in Midland, Michigan. It is the USA’s largest state-based free market think tank...
board member James Rodney. FREE also has continuously published 30-second radio spots for economic and social-issue education.
In 2006, the organization had Form 990 revenue of $632,396 and net assets of $458,996. It is categorized for tax-exempt purposes as "religious organization", "publishing activities", and "television" (National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities). Its publications are distributed by Partners Publishers Group. FREE obtains graphic design services for its newsletters from Mark Elam, as president of M&M Graphics and Advertising; Elam also printed more politically-charged newsletters as an officer of the for-profit group Ron Paul & Associates (RP&A).
Activism
The New York Times Magazine credited FREE as part of the nationwide free-market network which won "one of the stranger Congressional elections of modern times", when Paul defeated incumbent Congressman Greg LaughlinGreg Laughlin
Gregory H. "Greg" Laughlin is a politician from the state of Texas. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives....
in 1996.
Media Transparency reported, without further elaboration, that the 9/11 Public Discourse Project
9/11 Public Discourse Project
The 9/11 Public Discourse Project was a non-governmental organization with 501 nonprofit status, started by the ten members of the 9/11 Commission after the commission disbanded on August 21, 2004...
was connected with FREE and NEFL. This project, a nonprofit organization of the ten 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...
ers, received a $25,000 grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation on December 31, 2004, to allow Commissioner Christopher A. Kojm
Christopher A. Kojm
-Biography:Kojm received an AB from Harvard College in 1977 and an MA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1979. From 1979 to 1984 he was a senior editor at the Foreign Policy Association in New York City....
to "lead an effort to educate the American public on the findings of the 9/11 Commission. He will organize a series of nationwide briefings by the members of the commission at which they will discuss the implications of their findings for U.S. national security."
In 2007, FREE published A Foreign Policy of Freedom, a collection of thirty years of Paul's statements on foreign policy. Paul and the book were featured on a crowded Tonight Show on October 30, 2007, and host Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
was able to get Paul to autograph his copy after the show.
On January 8, 2008, FREE was implicated by James Kirchick in the controversy surrounding several newsletters published in Paul's name, in that they contained language showing "obsession with conspiracies" and "deeply held bigotry". While most of the more serious newsletters were published by RP&A (the for-profit group) between 1987 and 1992, Kirchick also cited the original FREE newsletter's accusations of conspiracy, such as its statement that the Trilateral Commission
Trilateral Commission
The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental, non-partisan discussion group founded by David Rockefeller in July 1973 to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan.-History:...
"is no longer known only by those who are knowledgeable about international conspiracies, but is routinely mentioned in the daily news. Evidence of its influence on the Republican and Democratic administrations is all about us."
When Paul referred to the "winding down" of the GOP primaries
Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008
The 2008 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election...
on March 6, 2008, he referred listeners to the continuing fundraising work of FREE and that of his political action committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
.