Mission Statement
Founded in 1969, NTU is the nation's most effective taxpayers' lobby organization, supported by a grassroots membership base of over 350,000 persons. NTU has organized the most extensive network of taxpayers in the country, with members in all fifty states. As a non-profit, non-partisan organization, NTU lobbies Congress and state legislatures, educates the public, politicians, and the media on important taxpayer issues, and provides assistance to members who want to become effective citizen activists at the local level.
Established in 1977, National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) was founded as a public research and education organization dedicated to collecting data, analyzing information, and informing the public on matters of fiscal and economic policy.
NTUF's mission is to provide timely and original information promoting the benefits of lower taxes and limited government. Our work covers a wide range of important public policy issues, including tax reform, economic growth, Congressional budget tracking, interest group analysis, and entitlement reform. Since its founding in 1977, NTUF has actively engaged in the policy formation process at the academic, judicial, and political levels.
Description
NTUF was the first organization to project in detail the direct losses in after-tax personal income that would result in future decades from uncontrolled entitlement growth. Additionally, well before Social Security reform became a "hot topic" among most think tanks, in 1996 NTUF developed a comprehensive "National Thrift Plan" that mapped out a 30-year-plus transition plan to individually owned personal accounts.
NTUF's BillTally and VoteTally cost accounting systems continue to serve as the nation's most comprehensive, reliable, and informative systems for evaluating Congressional spending. Each utilizes custom software developed by NTUF to cross-index every bill introduced and voted on in Congress with the sponsorship and the voting records of each Senator and Representative.
BillTally is a unique cost accounting system (initiated in 1991) that computes a "net annual agenda" for each lawmaker. The results, which are released annually, reflect each Senator's or Representative's individual sponsorship or co-sponsorship of pending legislation, and provide an in-depth look at the fiscal behavior of lawmakers, free from the influence of committees, party leaders, and rules surrounding floor votes. All cost estimates for bills are obtained by third-party sources or are calculated from neutral data.
VoteTally is NTUF's companion program focusing on floor votes in the House and Senate. The first VoteTally report was issued in 1994, which covered the first three-quarters of the 103rd Congress, but it is now issued annually. The goal of the VoteTally project is to quantify the federal budgetary impact associated with how a Member of Congress votes.
NTUF's work extends well beyond the halls of Congress. NTUF not only engages in research on state and local finances but also sponsors a biannual educational conference for state and local taxpayer activists. NTUF is likewise well-known on the international scene as an advisor to numerous citizen groups and think tanks across the globe.
