Howard Rich

Howard S. Rich, also known as Howie Rich (born 1940) is a real estate investor who is notable for funding libertarian-oriented political initiatives such as term limits, school choice, parental rights regarding education, limited government and property rights.

He has published essays advocating these positions.

He established advocacy organizations such as Americans for Limited Government and U.S. Term Limits.

He is the former chairman of the Legislative Education Action Drive and the Parents in Charge Foundation.

Rich has been described as one of the "lower-profile moneymen in American politics" but as a prominent "force in elections across the country."

Rich focuses his advocacy mostly on local issues like term limits, not on national campaigns, and doesn't see himself as leaning right or left.

He is an effective advocate; National Public Radio identified Rich as a leader behind the independent groups with potential to influence elections.

Rich attended the George W. Wingate High School in Brooklyn, New York.

While a senior, he earned the New York State Regents scholarship.

He studied economics at Baruch College in New York City.

He studied investing at the New York University Stern School of Business.

According to one source, Rich initially had a plumbing contracting business, but used its revenues to buy real estate.

He became a real estate entrepreneur around 1965.

He began a pattern of buying Manhattan properties, fixing them up, and selling them.

In 1970, he bought a multiresidential building.

During the next two decades he bought more buildings and modernized them.

Rich described his real estate strategy: "I bought buildings when no one else wanted them, then I sold them."

Before 1983, Rich was active in the Libertarian Party and worked with Charles Koch to promote small-government and free-market causes.

After 1983, Rich left the Libertarian Party and continued his activism with private groups.

By 1986 he owned 17 buildings but sold 15 buildings.

After the 1987 stock market crash he sold one more building.

In 1989 he exchanged his remaining property for a property in Houston.

In the 1990s he began purchasing Manhattan properties again.

In 1990, Rich and his wife Andrea took over the Libertarian Review Foundation and renamed it the Center for Independent Thought.

Rich's wife was an owner of Laissez-Faire Books and was a trustee of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

While Rich has supported the Libertarian Party, he is enrolled as a Republican.

Rich serves on the Board of Directors of the Cato Institute.

In 1992, Rich met Bill Wilson and the two worked together on a variety of causes.

Rich financed Wilson's efforts at U.S. Term Limits, Parents in Charge and Americans for Limited Government.

Rich's associate Wilson describes these organizations not as libertarian but rather as "rolling back the government."

Rich explained his mission was to "advance individual freedom and create an atmosphere where we restore the Founders' concepts of property rights and free markets."

Rich became more politically active in the movement to limit government beginning about 1992.

He has supported referendum measures that would limit government spending, curb the seizure of land, and scholarship tax credits.

He prefers underwriting ballot measures rather than lobbying in state capitols.

Rich explained: "Working with the state legislators is a fool's errand" and added "Most of them are RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) who water things down to nothing."

Rich was a supporter of Americans for Limited Government which was headed by Bill Wilson.

In the 2000s, he sold some Manhattan properties and bought garden apartment developments in different states.

In 2009 it had a budget of US$4million, though by 2014, the budget was down to $1.1 million.

This group has been described as non-partisan.

It has been critical of president Obama.