Mandate for Leadership

Mandate for Leadership is a series of books published by the Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. They offer specific conservative policy recommendations designed to be implemented by the federal government. The books have traditionally been released to coincide with an incoming U.S. presidential administration. The first edition was released in 1981, following the election of Ronald Reagan, to serve as policy guidance for the incoming Reagan administration. The latest edition, published in April 2023, is a major component of Project 2025.

In 1979, at a trustees' meeting of the Heritage Foundation, Jack Eckerd, former head of the General Services Administration in the Ford administration, suggested that the foundation draw up a conservative plan of action for the next incoming presidential administration in January 1981. Robert Krieble proposed that Heritage produce a manual to help policymakers "cut the size of government and manage it more effectively".

The first edition was overseen and edited by Charles Heatherly, a former field director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In late January 1980, Heatherly produced a five-page outline titled Mandate for Leadership. Heatherly explained that the purpose of the project was to present concrete proposals to "revitalize our economy, strengthen our national security and halt the centralization of power in the federal government".

Both the Reagan and Carter campaigns were approached by the foundation to discuss the project; however, they only received a reply from the Reagan–Bush campaign. In July 1980, Reagan aide Edwin Meese was a surprise guest at a dinner held by Heritage for the project's team chairmen and co-chairmen. There, Meese gave the Heritage study his blessing, which was seen as a sign of the Reagan administration's receptiveness to the project.

In January 1981, Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration was released as a 20-volume, 3,000-page publication. Mandate contained more than 2,000 individual suggestions to move the federal government in a conservative direction, focusing on management and administration. The report "presented an explicit plan for reshaping public discourse on civil rights issues". To that end, it recommended the Justice Department "halt its affirmative action policies to remedy past discrimination against women and other minorities."

Specific suggestions related to spending included raising the defense budget by $20 billion in fiscal year 1981 and increasing it by an average of $35 billion over the next five years; establishing urban "enterprise zones" to encourage businesses to move into the nation's inner cities; reducing personal income tax rates by 10 percent across the board; calling for line-item veto power by the president; and developing a new strategic bomber by using B-1 and advanced bomber technology. At the first meeting of his cabinet, President Reagan passed out copies of Mandate, and many of the study's authors were recruited into the White House administration. In particular, the Reagan administration hired key Mandate contributors: William Bennett as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (and later as Secretary of Education) and James G. Watt as Secretary of the Interior.

According to Mandate's authors, around 60% of the 2,000 proposals in it were implemented or initiated at the end of Reagan's first year in office. In a report on the first year of the Reagan administration, the Heritage Foundation expressed disappointment with the government's defense and foreign policy, while it lauded the Office of Management and Budget. Mandate for Leadership appeared on The Washington Post's paperback bestseller list, and the Post called it "an action plan for turning the government toward the right as fast as possible." In 2002, The New York Times called it "the manifesto of the Reagan revolution".

In 1984, Heritage released Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution. The study featured 1,300 recommendations from 150 contributors, and continued the original Mandate's aim of reforming the federal government and strengthening U.S. defenses.