FreedomWorks is proud to announce that our bill of the month for May 2019 is the Death Tax Repeal Act, H.R. 218, sponsored by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and boasting an impressive 82 cosponsors. The Death Tax Repeal Act would fully repeal the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes that wreak havoc on American families who are already suffering the loss of a loved one, often causing them to lose their generations-old family businesses because of the excessive greed of the federal government.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to cosponsor Private Property Protection Act, H.R. 738. Introduced by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the Private Property Rights Protection Act would put strict limitations on the federal, state and local governments from exercising the power of eminent domain for economic development purposes.

The issue of eminent domain is receiving renewed interest thanks to a new movie about Susette Kelo, whose property was taken by the City of New London, Connecticut to enhance the city’s tax base. The movie, Little Pink House, was recently released in select theaters across the country. Conservative columnist George Will wrote that the movie, which was directed by Courtney Balaker and co-produced by Ted Balaker, “will win the Oscar for best picture if Hollywood’s political preening contains even a scintilla of sincerity about speaking truth to power.”

Before diving into the details of the Senate’s version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, let’s run through the latest in the House of Representatives. The lower chamber’s version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1, was approved by the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday, November 9 in a party-line vote.

Masked as “helping the poor,” the left is on a crusade for equality of outcome. Stripped from the Marxist playbook of class warfare, equality of outcome has become their chief principle. In a word search of a 2015 Democratic presidential debate Wall Street was mentioned 23 times, tax 20 times, inequality 9 times and wealthy 7 times. ISIS, freedom, debt and liberty were mentioned a total of 5 times. This notion is further exemplified by their latest outrage against repealing the death tax. Doing so, according to the left, would give children of the top 1 percent an "unfair" cheat code to hang around the top 1 percent. Solely focused on inequality, the left ignores the devastating consequences of this tax on the middle and lower class.

On Wednesday, the "Bix Six" -- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) -- unveiled a unified framework for fundamental tax reform. There are still many details that need to be provided, but the framework overhauls and simplifies the tax code, promoting economic growth, job creation, and fairness.

On behalf of our activist community in Pennsylvania, I urge you to contact your representatives and ask them to support the Senate Bill 8, introduced by Sen. Mike Folmer (R-Lebanon). This bill, which passed the state Senate in April, would transform current civil asset forfeiture procedure in Pennsylvania to better protect private property and due process.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and strongly encourage him or her to cosponsor the Deterring Undue Enforcement by Protecting Rights of Citizens from Excessive Searches and Seizures (DUE PROCESS) Act, H.R. 1795, introduced by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). The DUE PROCESS Act includes changes to federal forfeiture laws that fail to protect innocent Americans.

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and representatives and ask them to cosponsor the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, S. 642 and H.R. 1555, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.). The FAIR Act would reform federal civil asset forfeiture laws to increase the evidentiary standard needed to subject property to permanent seizure and restore the presumption of innocence in federal civil forfeiture proceedings.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a blog post up today with a headline which reads: "Forfeiture: Georgia was once one of the worst. Now? It’s not so bad." Sounds great. When did the Georgia General Assembly pass legislation to improve the forfeiture law in the state by requiring more protections for innocent property owners? Well, it hasn't.