The House will be in session for two days this week. The Senate is in recess.

In the coming days, perhaps as soon as this week, the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee could consider SB 3. This bill reforms Ohio’s sentencing laws for low-level, nonviolent offenses and focuses limited prison resources and severe, mandatory minimum sentences for drug traffickers. FreedomWorks supports this approach. States like Georgia and Texas have shown that a focus on recidivism reduction and drug treatment programs while reserving prison space for the worst offenders enhances public safety.

Famed investor and liberal political activist Bradley Tusk raised eyebrows with what he and many on the left dubbed provocative: a defense of “Big Pharma” in the U.S. The premise is straightforward: for the medical community to conduct the type of R&D required to combat challenges like coronavirus, they cannot be subject to strict price control regimes so popular among progressives.

The Senate is in session this week. The House is in recess.

House and Senate Democrats are preparing to release another very costly legislative response to COVID-19. No cost estimate is available quite yet, but we know that it’s likely to rival the $2.3 trillion cost of the Phase III bill, the CARES Act, which passed Congress in March. Although all the details of the Democrats’ legislation haven’t been released, it will likely include $1 trillion in funding for state and local governments, bailouts for pension funds and the U.S. Postal Service, expansion of food stamps and the earned income tax credit, universal basic income, and an “essential worker bill of rights.”

Although we all learn about the horrors of Prohibition in school, few seem to realize that many Americans are still living in the shadow of those laws today. While attitudes towards alcohol have warmed since the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, 17 states still maintain monopolies over the distribution of spirits. Worst among these is Pennsylvania, whose Liquor Control Board (PLCB) essentially functions as a cartel. Now is the time to abandon antiquated notions of state control and allow the market to flourish by privatizing Pennsylvania’s liquor industry.

The Senate is in session. The House is in recess.

Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) has come under intense criticism for taking steps to re-open Georgia. The criticism is peculiar. Reading the reactions on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and elsewhere, one would think that Kemp is forcing businesses to re-open and making consumers begin visiting stores and restaurants. The reality is that it’s up to business owners whether they re-open, and it’s up to consumers whether they leave their homes. It’s a choice, which is the very basis of liberty.

A rushed legislative process often has unintended consequences. Language is hastily written. Policies that are included aren’t fully thought through. The most important thing in the minds of lawmakers is to “do something.” Certainly, something had to be done in response to COVID-19, but aspects of the Phase III response, the CARES Act, will almost certainly hurt the economic recovery. One aspect of the CARES Act that will hurt the recovery is the enhanced unemployment benefits for Americans who’ve lost their jobs due to disruptions caused by COVID-19.