Week in Review: The Last Thing We Need This Labor Day

“Can I afford to feed my family and put a roof over their heads?”

It’s the question millions of Americans are asking themselves this Labor Day weekend as they face sky-high costs of living, soaring interest rates, and a jobs report that fell well short of expectations. So the last thing American workers need is government red tape that stops them from earning an honest living.

But they’re getting tied up nonetheless. One in four jobs in America requires an occupational license—a government permission slip to work. These licenses are expensive, demand time-consuming training, and are subject to requirements that vary from state to state. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way, and the Goldwater Institute is cutting that red tape in state after state. Goldwater’s Breaking Down Barriers to Work reform streamlines the process for licensed, experienced workers to quickly get back to work when they move to a new state—without going through the costly and time-consuming licensing process all over again.

Goldwater first enacted this law in 2019 in Arizona—where it’s already helped more than 8,000 workers—and we’ve since passed it in more than half the states in the country. Moreover, this year Goldwater passed the Military Spouse Licensing Relief Act into federal law, empowering military spouses, who often move every few years, to pursue their own American Dream.

This Labor Day, we should keep the dignity of American workers in mind—and in particular, we should work to ensure that all Americans are free to make a living in the careers they want and need.

Read more at In Defense of Liberty. 

The Most Offensive Way the Government Gives Away Your Money?

It’s one of the most blatantly corrupt schemes the government uses to fund its favored special interests with your money. It’s called “release time,” and every year, the government uses it to dole out untold millions of taxpayer dollars to public-sector labor unions, who then spend the money to lobby politicians for bigger government. The Goldwater Institute is fighting release time across the country, and now we’re urging the Arizona Supreme Court to strike down these unconstitutional subsidies.

Here’s a case study in how “release time” works: the Phoenix government signs contracts with public-sector unions that include millions of dollars in salaries for employees who don’t work for the government, but who instead work for the union. That’s why Goldwater filed a pair of briefs this week asking the Arizona Supreme Court to take up our lawsuit against these multi-million-dollar giveaways.

Freedom of speech forbids the government from forcing people to finance political expression that they disagree with. And the Arizona Constitution specifically prohibits the government from giving “gifts” to private organizations, including unions. In Arizona and around the nation, the Goldwater Institute will keep challenging release time—after all, the law is on our side.

Read more at In Defense of Liberty. 

The Triumphs of Deregulation

Americans are best off when we can make our own decisions about our health. That was the overarching theme of Goldwater Senior Fellow Naomi Lopez’s recent interview on the DC EKG podcast, where she highlighted how the Goldwater Institute’s work to cut healthcare regulations has helped patients.

Consider Goldwater’s groundbreaking Right to Try law, which we enacted in 40 states and then federally to protect terminally ill patients’ right to access experimental treatments. Right to Try is saving countless lives as pharmaceutical companies use the law to treat entire groups of patients in promising new ways. And as Lopez explained, it’s laying the groundwork for Goldwater’s Right to Try for Individualized Treatments, a law we’ve already enacted in Arizona and Nevada to extend the Right to Try to personalized medicine, which includes cutting-edge treatments tailor-made based on our genetics. Or consider telehealth services, which millions of patients are using to access high-quality care through their phones or computers. In 2021, Goldwater passed the nation’s most comprehensive telehealth reform in Arizona, making the state’s temporary COVID-era telehealth flexibilities permanent and transforming quality of life for thousands.

It’s individuals, not the government, who are best equipped to make decisions regarding their treatment journey. That’s Goldwater’s guiding principle as we continue working to foster innovation and safeguard patients against the undue influence of unelected busybody bureaucrats.

Listen to the podcast here.