The FREOPP Scholar: Michael Tanner
Michael Tanner has seen a lot over his three-plus-decade career in the think tank world. But when an opportunity arose to join FREOPP as a Senior Fellow in 2023, he recognized the chance to be a part of something entirely new.
“I feel that the purpose of public policy is to enable human flourishing,” says Michael. “I’ve always admired that FREOPP focuses its attention on the people that are most in need. Those are the people I want to help. Throughout my years — decades — of public policy work, that’s always been my focus. Whether it was healthcare or entitlement policy, social security reform, or social welfare policy, I’ve always focused on the need to help people who are struggling, and I think I can do that with FREOPP.”
Michael was born into a working-class family in North Adams, Massachusetts, an old mill town in the northwest corner of the state. He witnessed firsthand what happens when a local industry disappears; the population of North Adams declined by half between the time he was born and the time he left for college. “It was primarily a textile city, but the factories packed up and moved south, and the city didn’t do well thereafter,” he says. “There’s been a recent effort to remake it as an arts center, but essentially, if you were my age and you went to college, you didn’t come back to North Adams.”
Michael was the first in his family to graduate from college. A member of the Class of 1978 at Norwich University in Vermont, “the Citadel of the North,” he studied English and Government, pursuing passions that his parents fostered in him early on. “Even in high school, I was a voracious reader and someone who took an interest in politics. My family talked a lot about politics around the kitchen table, so it’s something that I’ve always had an interest in.”
After graduation and a brief stint in the Air Force, Michael waited tables, and made an unsuccessful attempt at running for local office. “I ran for state legislature twice and I have to say, I feel that I did a great deal for my town,” he recalls wryly. “Because my opponent was the chairman of the local affairs committee, we’d never had so many bridges built and stoplights put in as there were during my campaign against him.”
Michael soon found his way to Washington during the Reagan years, and, other than a short detour to Atlanta as head of research for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, he has lived in the D.C. area ever since. In 1993, Michael joined the Cato Institute, where he spent nearly 30 years as Director of Health & Welfare Studies and as a Senior Fellow. Over that time, he testified before Congress ten times, wrote 11 books, and published dozens of reports, studies, and articles for outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
Over time, Michael found his views diverging from those of the established ideological camps. “I don’t feel like I fit in on the left or the right,” he says. “I speak to people of varying ideologies in ways that build common ground. I’ve been around Washington forever and I’ve seen just about everything — funding, defunding, refunding, different funding — and I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe helping people escape poverty isn’t all about money.”
In 2018, Michael published his landmark book, The Inclusive Economy: How to Bring Wealth to America’s Poor, which highlights many of the themes that FREOPP’s scholars work on. “Most of the debate over social welfare policy has been wrongheaded,” he says. “It’s a frozen debate where neither side really looks at the strongest arguments of the other side. I’m a big believer that anti-poverty efforts need to be holistic. They need to address a variety of areas — which FREOPP does — from welfare reform, to housing, criminal justice reform, education reform, and creating more economic opportunity. All of these things need to be a part of the discussion.”
At FREOPP, Michael builds on his prior experience to help us overhaul the welfare system in a way that improves Americans’ economic security and social mobility.
Michael lives in Takoma Park, Maryland with his wife Ellen, a professional artist, and their two rescue dogs. In his spare time, he practices martial arts and has a second-degree black belt in Muay Thai. He and his wife have written three epic fantasy novels, and plan on writing more.
Follow Michael on Twitter: @TannerOnPolicy
