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Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

In our Society there is a disconnect between those who think and do and those who feel and do.

A well thought-out Conservative Think Tank could significantly reduce the size of that disconnect. The key is to set up the Group to succeed.

As a Scientist I have little patience with those who hold assumptions or hypotheses that they refuse to test, or worse, refuse to acknowledge that their assumptions and hypotheses have already failed many tests.

Here is a perfect example: “ - - - The only emergency thing they can do is just what Hank Paulson told GWB, give me 700 billion dollars. - - - “

The assumption is that ‘priming the pump’ will actually achieve positive, national, financial success.

The hypothesis that was built on that assumption is commonly called the Keynesian Economic Hypothesis.

That assumption was tested by President Harry Truman right after WW2 and Give ‘em Hell Harry sent Keynes packing back to England empty handed!

This topic warrants a lengthy set of Threads on FR or several White Papers from your group.

My question remains: ‘Splain in short, declarative sentences the mechanics of how such a topic would be dealt with in your Group?

1.) Reduce each of your paragraphs to one sentence.
2.) ‘Cut to the chase.’
3.) Assume that I have the attention-span of a 6 year old, (note that I did NOT say intellect of a 6 year old, although sometimes my wife brings up that topic - - - ).

My question remains: ‘Splain in short, declarative sentences the mechanics of how such a topic would be dealt with in your Group?

A) The tank will maintain it's own master list of the broad topic categories it's currently concerned with.

B) The topic categories are very broad; let me see if I can state your specific topic clearly.

C) From the tank's perspective, I would describe your specific top as: intended versus real effects of Keynesian monetary policy, starting from the viewpoint of small business.

D) The tank will have standing committees covering broad areas of research: Economic Policy, Regulatory Policy, Finance and Capital, Community Environment, etc., each chaired by a Fellow and having access to researchers, support staff, etc., and a collaborative document management system.

E) Each committee can initiate their own research projects, and they handle incoming requests (both internal and external) that are first reviewed by a top-level Proposal Committee; all this work is ongoing.

F) The Economic Policy committee would undoubtedly have your question as one of the first topics it initiates itself since it's so fundamental.

G) Let's just say a topic may have been input by one of our thousands of business owner members in the collaborative document management system - their local "group editor", say, for Northern New Jersey, took a few input requests, checked to see if there ALREADY are papers that answer the question, and formulated them into a request and sent it on to say and "Eastern region" Editor, who had some back and forth, then published the writeup of the question (everyone can now see it) and put it in the Inbox of Proposal Committee.

H) The Proposal Committee discusses with all the Comittee chairs what they want to assign to who based on various factors; out of this process the research request is assigned to the Economic Policy Committee and some sort of work process is defined.

I) The EPC needs to start by creating some kind of simple overall plan to research the question, but it does not want to assume it's conclusions, so there must an iterative process, managed by the EPC, where they start off in one or more investigative directions, giving assignments to research assistants or external paid consultants, then review results and see where they want to go next.

J) The EPC sends a draft to the Exec Committee, etc., a process to approve finalization; the document becomes part of our library for all to read internally via the CMS, it may be select for online "public" publication or inclusion in the Quarterly Journal (subscribed to by thought leaders).

K) The paper may generate questions from thought leaders or the others in the public who may then contact the "Institute" for consultation; it may be linked to on the web, the author may speak on the paper at one of our symposiums or that of some other interested group, government, business, school, etc.; our members may want to discuss it and they can certainly read it online.

L) Related papers and topics that the Executive Committee sees there is or should be great interest in, may be the basis for more activity; perhaps they touch on some basic principle that would be beneficial to start an advocacy campaign for, where we use marketing, events, schools, etc., to raise awareness of what the EC sees as a good ideal to strive for, like "Small Business Heroes!", etc., that can be marketed.

M) A goal is to establish numerous Annual Symposium long weekend events at nice resorts that are an important destination for lawmakers, church leaders, business leaders, academics, etc., so they can hear our speakers, which are drawn from our staff and members and carefully selected visitors (the purpose is not for politicians, VP's of banks, real estate, office supplies, etc. to talk to our members but to hear the speakers) - big business wants most for small business to grow so it creates jobs and their big businesses will then get going again - biggies are banks, cars, real estate, retail, etc., so if sm bus gives them a simple actionable set of requests they'd be all ears.

N) When lawmakers get interested in our research and us, we can't work with them like a lobbyist to write legislation but we can, on a consulting basis, explain the concepts in our white papers and speak as experts in our various fields, i.e., answer what if questions based on our analysis, etc. (we may have something like a roadmap to a radically new healthcare system, etc.).

I guess I ran over! - I tried to make it as short a trip through the mechanics I could and till give you a simplistic ringside view - committee organization is, of course, by State and by Topic.