Comment by jartelt

The book Dark Money by Jane Mayer tells much of the backstory of how many of these think tanks got started. Most of them were funded by rich folks, mostly far right or libertarian (e.g. Kochs brothers), for one reason: to make the rich folks' far right, libertarian views seem moderate and mainstream. The idea was to sponsor a think tank that looked moderate and unbiased, but then to fill it up handpicked people who were basically paid to try to "prove" that the Koch brothers ideas are good. Of course both sides do this now, but the libertarian and far right folks have done it the best.