Talented team hampered by indecision at the top - Anonymous employee Taxpayers For Common Sense Employee Review

TCS, as an organization, is stuck in a bit of an identity crisis. It tries to be three things at once: an informative source of information for the general public, a wonky resource for experts, and an effective advocate for taxpayers. Unfortunately, because of confusion at the top about what TCS should be, it does none of those things effectively. Certain members of TCS seem to recognize this (they told me as such), but their efforts are constantly hampered by indecision at the top. One executive level staffer (out of the four) is particularly bad at this. They are much more concerned about TCS’ public image and relationships with decision makers than they are about advocating for what TCS supposedly stands for. Many times, this staffer would pull down projects, products, and social media for “optics” because one political party would be on TCS’ bad side more than the other. Some program areas (Agriculture and NatSec) seem to understand that being nonpartisan means having a consistent set of ideals, and working with anyone who is willing to support those ideals, rather than only having ideals when there is widespread support for said idea. Ah well, I digress. I truly believe that TCS could be a great organization, and don’t get me wrong, their analytical output is second to none, but I truly worry about their mid to long term strategy, especially under a second trump administration.