Week in Review: New! Our 2022 Liberty in Action Report

For 250 years, our country has fought against tyranny and oppression across the globe. But today, there’s a different, dangerous idea that’s taking hold. Leftists are trying to change the very core of what it means to be an American: promoting socialism, raising taxes, increasing government dependency, and indoctrinating our children with Marxist ideas like Critical Race Theory.

In our newly released 2022 Liberty in Action Annual Report, we highlight the Goldwater Institute’s incredible successes over the last year in defending our core principles and chart a course for the future. You can read the report here, and check out the highlights of our accomplishments below:

• We’re spearheading the nationwide movement to protect parents’ right to know what their children are learning.
• We’re taking on public school bureaucrats who try to bully concerned parents.
• We’re advancing school choice across the country.
• We’re defending taxpayers’ rights against leftists who want to take more of Americans’ hard-earned money.
• We’re at the forefront of expanding patient choice, access, and affordability in healthcare.
• We’re leading the national effort to defend property rights and end government theft.
• We’re tearing down barriers to employment and safeguarding Americans’ right to earn a living.

Read more about our successes from the past year here.

Want to Know What Your Kids Are Learning? Call 1-800-STONEWALL

If you’ve ever called a 1-800 number for customer service, you know the drill. It’s an endless spiral of redirection and being put on hold until you eventually forget why you were calling in the first place.

Public schools across the country are using a similar tactic to make it impossible for parents to find out what their children are learning. Take the case of Michigan mom Carol Beth Litkouhi. She simply wanted to know more about a new ethnic and gender studies class in her children’s school district after a teacher’s social media post set off alarm bells in her head. She asked the teacher for information about the curriculum, only to be redirected to district officials, who were little help. She filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to no avail, then appealed—only to be told the district did not have the curriculum information she sought. To this day, Litkouhi is still waiting for answers.

Litkouhi’s experience is far from an outlier, and you can read other examples here. Thankfully, there’s a solution: Goldwater’s Academic Transparency Act, which requires public schools to post online a list of instructional materials and activities used during the academic year. This commonsense reform—which has been introduced in more than twenty states—is backed by parents, current and former teachers, and the vast majority of Americans. Lawmakers should pay attention—and act accordingly.

Read more about Litkouhi’s story and Goldwater’s solution at In Defense of Liberty.

Arizona Chooses a Better Path Than Record Tax Hikes

Goldwater’s win over Proposition 208, the largest tax hike in Arizona’s history, is “a victory for anyone who wants Arizona to remain an attractive environment for economic growth,” Goldwater Vice President for Litigation Timothy Sandefur writes for National Review.

While out-of-state leftist special interests “claimed the tax would not fall on small businesses, the opposite was true,” Sandefur adds. “The proposition effectively doubled taxes on owners of small businesses, the largest engine of job and wealth creation in the state.”

Goldwater filed a lawsuit challenging the initiative for violating the state Constitution’s restrictions on spending and taxation, and we won, defeating what Sandefur calls “the latest progressive effort to raid the paychecks of the state’s entrepreneurs and other successful working people.”

Read more at National Review.