Remembering Ed Crane

Star Parker
Tue, 17 Feb 2026 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

Within the last six months, two friends, both pioneers and giants in the world of ideas in Washington, D.C., passed from this world.

One, Ed Feulner, was the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, which became the nation's defining policy institute for conservative ideas.

Now, last week, Ed Crane, the co-founder of the Cato Institute, passed away.
Updated: Wed Feb 18, 2026

Within the last six months, two friends, both pioneers and giants in the world of ideas in Washington, D.C., passed from this world.

One, Ed Feulner, was the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, which became the nation's defining policy institute for conservative ideas.

Now, last week, Ed Crane, the co-founder of the Cato Institute, passed away.

Ed Crane built Cato to become the major presence in the nation's capital for libertarian ideas and policy.

My personal involvement with Cato began in 1996 when I was invited to join the national advisory board for Cato's project to transform Social Security from a government tax and spend program to a program of individually owned personal retirement accounts.

When I began working in the business of policy reform, a friend pointed out to me the words of futurist John Naisbitt, who observed, "Don't get so far ahead of the parade that no one knows you're in it."

Crane's great skill was bringing much needed revolutionary ideas for change to the marketplace, but being keenly sensitive regarding when and how to do it, so as to always remain relevant to the policy discussions of the day.

Social Security was already broken then, as it still is today.

What Cato brought to the discussion was perspective that the problem was not one of fixing technical glitches in the program, but that it was conceptually flawed, and so without changing the principles behind the program it couldn't be fixed.

Social Security violated the most fundamental of American principles — the freedom of every individual to take responsibility for their own life and retain control of their own property and the fruits of their own labor. It was the beginning of Americans buying into the premise that government can do a better job taking care of you than you can take care of yourself.

Social Security, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, opened the door to the modern welfare state in America. It was a foreign import from Europe — an idea not of American pedigree.

And, indeed, it was constitutionally challenged and Roosevelt's Supreme Court signed off on the constitutionality of Social Security and the idea that taxes could be levied on one set of citizens and those funds transferred to others. This was a first, and America was changed forever.

When Social Security was signed into law, the federal government consumed 10% of the national economy. Today it is approaches 25%.

This massive growth in government was, in large part, enabled by the changed understanding of the U.S. Constitution that found Social Security constitutional.

With the birth of the American welfare state, the core principles of the nation's founding — that the role of government is to secure our personal freedom — were marginalized,

For the many deeply confused Americans that still believe they are better off under government control, consider that at the beginning of 1996 when Cato was beginning its project to transform Social Security to ownership, the Dow Jones average stood a little over 5,000. Today it is flirting with 50,000.

That wealth delivered by the marketplace was forgone by those forced to pay Social Security taxes rather than invest long-term in America's great capital markets.

Ed Crane worked to restore America's founding principles that have been lost.

He would always nudge me, telling me that I'm not a libertarian. And I agreed with him.

I always told him I believe in freedom every much as he did. But I am a Christian.

So, as I believe in the sacredness of private property and ownership, I also believe in the sanctity of life and marriage between a man and woman.

The recent loss of two Eds — Ed Feulner and Ed Crane — is a loss to the nation.

Badly needed today is restoration of the fight for America's founding principles, that defined both of them, my friends.