Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner heads research into a variety of domestic policies, with an emphasis on poverty and social welfare policy, health care, and Social Security and entitlement reform.

His most recent book, The Inclusive Economy: How to Bring Wealth to America’s Poor, looks at the ways government contributes to poverty in the United States and suggests reforms that will enable the poor to more fully participate in a growing economy. Tanner is the author of numerous other books on public policy, including Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Leviathan on the Right: How Big‐​Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution, Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society, and A New Deal for Social Security. He also contributed a chapter to libertarianism.org’s Visions of Liberty.

Tanner’s writings have appeared in nearly every major American newspaper, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He writes a weekly column for National Review Online, and is a contributing columnist with the New York Post. A prolific writer and frequent guest lecturer, Tanner appears regularly on network and cable news programs.

The New York Times refers to him as “a lucid writer and skilled polemicist.” And Congressional Quarterly named him one of the nation’s five most influential experts on Social Security. Time magazine calls Tanner, “one of the architects of the private accounts movement.”

More recently Tanner has undertaken a major project to develop innovative solutions to poverty and inequality.