Welcome to FreedomWorks Foundation’s fifth regulatory review of 2019! Our Regulatory Action Center proudly updates you with our favorite tidbits from the swamp. We want to smash barriers between bureaucracy and the American people by delivering regulatory news straight to FreedomWorks activists. Check back in two weeks for the next edition.

There has been much talk in recent weeks of marginal income tax rates. Although the far-left have, talked about a return to high marginal income tax rates for several years, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) recently renewed the conversation. The “democratic” socialist has called for a massive wealth redistribution, with a top marginal rate of 70 percent.

FreedomWorks signed on to a coalition letter with 54 other conservative, free market advocacy groups to oppose the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) proposed international pricing index (IPI). If implemented, this rule would tie drug prices for Medicare Part B recipients to an international model based on the prices in over a dozen European countries.

Democrats froth at the mouth to take on President Trump in 2020 because he’s demolishing President Obama’s tax-spend-and-regulate everything legacy. Even though Democrats lost in 2016 by proudly championing big government, rumored 2020 presidential candidates Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) think bigger government will work this time around.

Saturday marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. His work with Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, and Das Kapital inspired communist uprisings in Russia, China, and several other countries. Despite the death and destruction under communist regimes over the past century, some are inexplicably still debating Marx’s legacy leading up to the anniversary of his birth.

“Would you like your socialism in a waffle cone or a bowl?”

The Fabian socialists over a century and a half ago knew that if their ideas were to spread efficiently, they would have to spread far enough to touch every bring and mortar of the political establishment.

There aren’t too many things economists all agree on; unlike in the natural sciences, one’s perspective on economics often depends heavily on how one understands human behavior, incentives, and psychology. This is why you have such strident differences of opinion between left- and right-leaning economists on issues like the minimum wage, tax policy, and the ability of government spending to stimulate the economy.