Reopen America - April 2020

FreedomWorks is proud to announce that our bill of the month for September 2020 is the Separation of Powers Restoration Act (SOPRA),H.R. 7895 and S. 909, introduced by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) in the House and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) in the Senate. SOPRA seeks to restore the proper separation of powers by eliminating judicial deference to bureaucratic agencies’ interpretation of laws.

FreedomWorks is proud to honor Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as our member of the month for September 2020. Senator Paul’s voting record has been 98 percent in alignment with FreedomWorks’ Congressional Scorecard over the ten years he has served as Kentucky’s junior U.S. Senator. During that time, he has consistently been a source and fearless champion of some of the best, limited-government legislation across a wide spectrum of issues.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) seems to be all over the news these days. With politicians across the country refusing to completely re-open their economies and societies, millions more are expected to vote by mail this November. As with anything in politics, this has caused mass partisan hysteria to zero in on the USPS. Most recently, many prominent figures on the left claim the Trump administration is “sabotaging” the post office.

In a strange turn of events, patent filings recently made public show that the United States Postal Service (USPS) is attempting to monopolize the use of blockchain technology in voting. Not only is it disheartening to see a federal entity attempting to run what amounts to a tech startup, but the patent itself is dangerously vague with the potential to threaten innovation in an emerging market. Intellectual property protections should never be used to prop up dying federal agencies or to establish new government monopolies.

As states brace themselves for the revenue nightmare that COVID-19 will bring, the California Assembly is set to consider legislation that could irreparably damage their economic future. Rep. Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) recently proposed Assembly Bill 2088 that would be the first wealth tax in the nation, imposing a 0.4 percent tax on net worth for individuals and joint filers worth over $30 million. As if that wasn’t bad enough, AB 2088 would completely soak the rich by raising the top income tax rate from the already astronomical 13.3 percent to an even more ludicrous 16.8 percent.