Week in Review: The 'Deep State,' Red Tape, & a Higher Tax Rate?

January 15, 2022

Remember the National School Boards Association’s now-infamous September letter to the Biden administration linking concerned parents to “domestic terrorism”? It turns out Education Secretary Miguel Cardona may have requested the document, which essentially claimed parents are perpetrating a form of “terrorism” just by daring to stand up to the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and other politicized content in the classroom.

The revelation underscores the public education establishment’s disdain for parents’ rights, the Goldwater Institute’s Joe Setyon writes. The federal government and the NSBA are getting plenty of help in this regard from public sector teachers union forces—this much was made evident by the National Education Association’s October letter to social media platforms effectively demanding they censor citizens who express concern about what’s going on in the classroom.

“[C]onsidering that various arms of [the] education establishment appear to be working in tandem to crack down on dissent, it’s no wonder that many parents see the specter of an education ‘deep state’ that tries to silence them at every turn,” Setyon adds.

Read the rest at In Defense of Liberty.

No Trust Without Accountability

Seventy-five years. If the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) got its way, that’s how long we might have had to wait to see all the records on the approval process for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Fortunately, a federal judge wouldn’t let this blatant attempt to evade transparency stand. But it’s outrageous that it took a court battle to find out how and why the FDA decides who gets access to treatments, Goldwater Director of Healthcare Policy Naomi Lopez writes. Unfortunately, this is nothing new from the FDA, and Goldwater has been fighting the agency’s lack of transparency for years.

In 2014, we asked the FDA why it had allowed two American aid workers infected with Ebola to use an experimental treatment that had not been tested on humans. And when the FDA wouldn’t give us answers, we took the agency to federal court and won a huge victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In 2016, we sought information about the FDA’s processes for requesting investigational treatments outside of clinical trials. And—more recently—we asked why the agency had interfered with a doctor’s treatment recommendations for his dying patient.

“The pandemic has laid bare the fact that the federal government wields enormous power over our individual lives,” Lopez writes. “Americans deserve to know who is responsible—and debate who should be responsible—for making these crucial decisions, as well as the parameters used to make them.”

Read the rest at In Defense of Liberty.

AZ Gov. Ducey Highlights Goldwater Wins – Here’s the Next Battle We’re Waging

In his State of the State address Monday, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey highlighted four of Goldwater’s policy wins in its fight for freedom: School choice, universal recognition of occupational licensing, telemedicine, and Arizona’s new 2.5 percent flat tax rate.

In 2022, Goldwater is building upon our work from last year all across the country. In Arizona, we’re defending the flat tax from far-left special interest forces that want the government to take more of Arizonans’ money. On Wednesday, we filed a brief with the Arizona Supreme Court urging the justices to block efforts by pro-tax advocates to revoke the tax cut by referendum, Goldwater Vice President for Litigation Timothy Sandefur writes.

Read more about our brief at In Defense of Liberty.