President Donald Trump has done an admirable job at defanging the IRS, which was converted into a weaponized agency targeting their political enemies.
Chief Justice John Marshall famously pronounced early in our nation’s history that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
The Democrats inside the Biden IRS took that to heart. They hired thousands of new IRS agents to harass businesses, rich people, and, in some cases, Republican donors. Some of the lieutenants to the infamous IRS enforcer Lois Lerner, the woman who aimed her agency’s auditing guns at conservative groups, are still active at the tax agency.
One of the most noxious of Biden’s left-over regulatory rules applies to partnerships – an increasingly common form of business organization and expansion. Microsoft’s revenues/profits flow down through its business partners.
Business partnerships are vital contributors to the U.S. economy. A 2024 study by Ernst and Young for the Small Business Entrepreneur Council found that 10 million Americans work for these partnerships, and they generate $1.3 trillion in GDP.
The IRS evidently thinks they are TOO successful.
A gang of holdovers from the Biden administration and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon, are trying to administratively change the taxation of pass-throughs and partnerships and subject these entities to “guilty until proven innocent” audits. The changes would alter the “economic substance doctrine” which determines how the taxes on a business’s profits are applied to the partners. If the entities are found liable for increased tax assessments, they could face a giant tax bill AND a confiscatory 60% strict liability penalty.
These partnership rules are admittedly murky and may need updated protections against potential tax evasion abuses. But this rewrite of the tax laws would be applied WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL. The Trump admin promised to end this illegal rewrite of the tax laws, but because of the turmoil at the IRS – with a revolving door of IRS Commissioners – the Biden-era rules still stand.
Meanwhile, Wyden has introduced legislation to codify these new rules into law. Get this: the Joint Committee on Taxation scores these IRS “reforms” as a potential $730 billion business tax increase over the next decade.
If the IRS isn’t told to cease and desist, they could be the perpetrators of the largest non-congressionally approved tax increase in American history.
The Trump administration is supposed to be easing the tax burden on our businesses and employers to make them more globally competitive, not handing them a three-quarter trillion-dollar tax INCREASE.
Trump or Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent should fix this tax raid on business before it reverses some of the job-creating benefits of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a visiting senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity.
It was Biden’s biggest “accomplishment.” The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which he later admitted had nothing to do with inflation (it actually did, just not in the direction the name suggested) but was really about dumping billions (really trillions) into subsidizing the green new scam. It was the biggest acceleration towards the “Net Zero” climate scam resulting in utilities across the country, especially here in Arizona, spamming the grid with unreliable energy generation such as solar, wind, and battery storage, driving up rates for utility customers while shattering reliability.
What finally made it through Congress and was signed into law on July 4th terminated tax credits for electric vehicles, “energy efficient” home improvements, and residential solar this year. As for the much larger credits, those subsidizing grid scale solar and wind farms, it’s much more complicated.
Nothing undermines confidence in elections quite like discovering they can be compromised by foreign billionaires or botched altogether through complex schemes like ranked-choice voting.
This year, legislatures across the country took aim at both of these urgent threats to election integrity, as outlined by a recent report from Honest Elections Project. Altogether, eight states closed a critical legal loophole allowing foreign billionaires to flood ballot measure campaigns with foreign dark money. Meanwhile, six more states banned ranked-choice voting, the most legislative bans in a single year. In other words, conservative states have made 2025 a banner year for election reform.
Most Americans would be shocked to learn how vulnerable our elections are to foreign influence. Federal law forbids foreign nationals from donating to candidates or political parties yet offers no such protection for state or local ballot measures. This means that a foreign billionaire cannot influence a particular race, but he can spend millions to pass a constitutional amendment that rewrites the rules of the entire election system.
That loophole has been a gift to Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. According to the watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, Wyss has directed roughly $280 million into the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which has simultaneously spent more than $130 million in foreign-tied funds into ballot campaigns in 26 states. As shocking as these figures are, they likely represent the tip of the iceberg. After all, the same loophole can just as easily be abused by foreign nationals doing the bidding of China and Russia.
Fortunately, conservative states are taking action to ensure that ballot measures are no longer a Trojan Horse for foreign interference. After Ohio led the way in 2024, eight states this year—Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Wyoming—enacted new laws to ban foreign nationals and the groups they finance from funding ballot measure campaigns. Even Kentucky’s Democratic governor signed the bill into law, proof that defending elections from foreign influence should not be a partisan proposition.
That hasn’t stopped many on the left from fighting to keep these loopholes open for purely partisan gain. Marc Elias, Democrats’ top election lawyer, went to court in Ohio in 2024 and again in Kansas this year to block these bans. He lost both times, once in front of an Obama-appointed judge. States clearly have the authority to ban foreign funding, and every state should.
The same is true of ranked-choice voting, and 2025 was an incredible year in the ongoing fight to stop its spread.
Under ranked-choice voting, voters are asked to rank multiple candidates. Ballots are counted in rounds as losing candidates are eliminated and votes are redistributed. If a voter fails to rank enough candidates, the ballot is “exhausted” and thrown out. Candidates can win the most first-place votes but lose the election. Delays are inevitable; Alaska’s ranked-choice voting tabulation does not even begin until 15 days after Election Day. In California, a tabulation error once led to the wrong candidate being certified. Ranked-choice voting turns what should be a straightforward election into a complicated black box.
Fortunately, the public has seen the problems with this system from the start. In 2024, ranked-choice voting advocates spent nearly $100 million dollars on ballot measures promoting the scheme in six states. All failed. Only the District of Columbia adopted it, which is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Between 2022 and 2024, 11 states banned ranked-choice voting. And this year, six more – Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming – acted to make the scheme illegal. And in Utah, lawmakers allowed a failed pilot program to expire, meaning ranked-choice voting will come to an end there, too.
As extraordinary as this progress is, conservatives must not become complacent. States like Michigan, Florida, Nebraska, North Carolina, Montana, and Arizona have all seen significant amounts of foreign-tied money pumped into ballot issue campaigns, but so far have not acted. And progressives remain committed to pushing ranked-choice voting, especially after witnessing the scheme elevate a Democratic Socialist in New York. Ranked-choice voting lobbyists are working legislatures nationwide, and activists are already gathering signatures for another ballot measure in the presidential battleground of Michigan.
That should serve as a warning. When it comes to securing our elections, the job is never done. This was a banner year for election integrity. Conservative leaders must keep the momentum going in 2026 and beyond.
If Katie Hobbs is thinking about what to do after her time as Governor is up, one option would be to test her skills in the Hide and Seek World Championships. After all, she proved during the 2022 gubernatorial election campaign that it’s what she’s best at.
After dodging any request to debate her opponent Kari Lake during her campaign, Hobbs also ducked reporters who dared to question her about it. She even hid in a restaurant bathroom after another reporter asked her why she didn’t like discussing politics.
All this hiding should have resulted in a simple decision. According to long-standing Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) rules, an opponent (in this case Kari Lake) should have been provided with airtime when a candidate (in this case Katie Hobbs) refused to debate. And the AZCCEC planned to do just that. But hours before Kari Lake’s interview was scheduled to take place, the AZCCEC learned that Arizona PBS went behind their back to schedule an exclusive interview with Katie Hobbs—moving them to postpone Lake’s interview.
If you think all this reeks of collusion, you’re right. And now, a public records request has made it clear. Katie Hobbs wasn’t playing hide and seek alone. She was purposefully aided by leadership at Arizona State University (ASU) and at PBS…
If Peoria Unified residents were skeptical about students being brainwashed with diversity, equity, and inclusion ideologies, rewatching the August 28, 2025, school board meeting should remove all remaining doubts. Current students delivered a majority of the 63 public comments against the cancellation of DEI-infused performing arts programs. The only problem is that these programs were never slated to be eliminated. Listen to PUSD school board members’ comments here.
A passionately misinformed parent created a Change.org petition claiming that the PUSD school board planned to cut ties with the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). Unfortunately, this parent took no initiative in contacting the board before circulating the petition. The parent also failed to direct activism efforts toward those organizations that practice discrimination against white students. It would have been great for the kids to bombard them with calls, emails, and demands to remove the racist policies from their websites.
Oh, well. Maybe next time…
Those who have actually followed the 2025 PUSD school board meetings understand that a majority of the board is working to eradicate DEI from school programs in compliance with President Trump’s Executive Order. Since the Department of Education prioritized the order, why wouldn’t school districts follow suit to protect federal resources? PUSD board members did their due diligence in contacting the Arizona Department of Education and consulting their lawyer in a closed session to ensure they weren’t jeopardizing Title II funding by renewing the agreements.
Not surprisingly, AZ State Superintendent Tom Horne and PUSD Superintendent K.C. Somers were in favor of keeping the programs despite these organizations’ defiance of federal mandates. The following screenshots are sourced directly from their websites. It only takes one or two clicks to find this information.
NDEO’s racial equity statements are currently parked behind information walls. Internet archives from 2020 reveal that the Advisory Board Director and CEO both met with equity consultants and agreed that NDEO should undergo a diversity audit to “help provide a roadmap for organizational and programmatic changes over the next few years, as NDEO embodies its commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization.” Their statement on social justice can be viewed below.
One leftist who instigated the PUSD protest was Washington Elementary School District (WESD) Board President Kyle Clayton. In 2023, Clayton was one of five board members who voted to terminate an 11-year relationship with Arizona Christian University due to the college’s stance on traditional marriage. At that time, Clayton—who identifies as an LGBT community member—said he was worried that Christian student-teachers would proselytize his children and make them feel bad about having two dads. It didn’t matter that ACU had never received a single complaint like this in 11 years.
Past board members in Clayton’s district signed anti-racism and LGBTQ+ affirming resolutions. The youngest WESD students are barely potty-trained. Let that sink in. Clayton willingly discriminates against people who believe in God and disagree with his lifestyle choices. This is the definition of bigotry. Clayton is not the kind of person who should be leading an elementary school district. WESD residents should be asking how and why radical, anti-Christian activists are sitting on their school board.
Ultimately, the PUSD school board protest made the adult activists look a bit foolish. Board Member Becky Proudfit—who historically supported DEI for students—clarified that the programs were “not in danger of being cut” but that the district endeavored to operate “in the bounds of legality.” She also reiterated that Title II funding is not a permanent solution and encouraged every speaker to contact the noncompliant organizations (as the petition starter should have done). Board Member Janelle Bowles—who is strongly against DEI— wholeheartedly agreed with Proudfit’s sentiments.
Although the students performed well during public comments, it was sad and exhausting to see so much misguided passion and wasted energy coming against leaders who are all working in their favor. Even conservative board members voted to keep programs with DEI components—albeit Board President Heather Rooks vehemently denounced EdTA’s racist ideologies, and another board member motioned to approve the programs with an attestation as part of their agreement with PUSD.
It’s a shame that the adults who gaslighted the children and influenced this demonstration lacked the foresight to protest the culprits causing the federal funding dilemma. If you’re going to encourage students to engage in activism, at least point them in the right direction. Of course, theatre, dance, music, and other artistic expressions provide students with an enriching experience and some lucrative post-secondary school opportunities.
Nevertheless, K-12 students don’t need to learn how to be “anti-racist” while playing a wind instrument. Gender identity is not a prerequisite for memorizing and delivering well-executed lines. And although the good Lord graced His black and brown people with more rhythm, white students shouldn’t be cut from recitals just because they’re born with melanin deficiency. Why any board member, superintendent, parent, or educator would advocate for DEI is beyond the comprehension of those who love all children the same, regardless of their ethnic background.
A final word to DEI champions: You would do best to listen to conservative black people instead of emotionally inserting yourselves into historical civil rights conflicts that don’t concern you. No one asked white liberals to fight battles or take on identity-based issues that didn’t affect their community 250 years ago. If leftists want to protest something, there is plenty of hatred directed at white, heterosexual, Christian conservatives today. People like me are doing just fine. We don’t need any handouts. The world would be a better, safer, more sane place if the adults on the self-righteous left took some time to study the true definition of diversity.
The legacy media seem to be on a mission: tear down Arizona’s groundbreaking school choice program with false accusations and inaccurate reporting.
Fortunately, facts don’t lie, even if the media does.
The Arizona Capitol Times declared this week in astonishing terms, “Education department under fire for approving $124M in improper ESA [education savings account] purchases.”
Such astronomical levels of fraud would seem to threaten the very foundations of the historic school choice revolution that has swept the nation. There was just one problem, the headline was completely false.
Not only were the supposed dollar amounts exaggerated up to 100 times greater than the amounts of improper spending actually reported by the department, but these purchases weren’t even approved in the first place.
Here’s the story the media won’t tell: Arizona’s 2022 adoption of a fully universal ESA program has been a nation-leading success, allowing parents across the state to give their children an education best suited to their needs.
To its credit, the Times quickly retracted its original headline and issued a formal correction admitting “an inaccurate dollar amount” in its first draft and eliminating the suggestion that the purchases were “approved.” Unfortunately, such journalistic ethics appear not to be shared by the Times’ more ideological media counterparts in Arizona, particularly those of the teachers’ union-aligned 12News team, who have resolutely declined to correct or retract their false reporting.
12News’ Craig Harris, for instance, has repeatedly and falsely declared that the state has “approved” ESA purchases for iPhones, televisions, and other non-educational items over the past year.
But all those purchases haven’t been approved, as the State Board of Education’s ESA Handbook—ratified by members appointed by both former Gov. Doug Ducey and Gov. Katie Hobbs—makes clear. The document expressly states that while families’ ESA purchases under $2,000 are promptly reimbursed by the state, these items “are not deemed ‘approved’ by the Department, until they are audited OR the timeframe to audit the orders has passed [2 fiscal years].” Just like their tax returns filed with the IRS, these families’ ESA purchases are processed up front and subject to enforcement afterwards.
Yet, 12News either knowingly misrepresented the status of these orders or else incompetently failed to perform basic due diligence to learn how the program operates.
By 12News’ anti-ESA logic, the IRS should apparently also withhold refunds to taxpayers until their tax returns have been audited potentially years later, rather than promptly when the returns are filed.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that 12News’ anti-school choice reporters have been exposed in such light. In 2018, Harris (then with the Arizona Republic) falsely reported that Arizona charter schools produced worse student graduation rates and worse outcomes on the state A-F letter grade system than district schools. Both claims turned out to have been fabricated results stemming from a faulty, agenda-driven data analysis by Harris’ team.
In 2024, 12News’ Joe Dana likewise doubled down on false claims that ESAs cost state taxpayers more than the public school system per student by conveniently ignoring major sources of public school funding. The state’s Classroom Site Fund, for example, allocates over $1,000 for every public school student in the state and gives not a penny to ESA families.
Undeterred by journalistic standards, Dana’s 12News team also went further, deceptively extracting a fragment of a statement given by the state’s budget director (given in response to a completely different question) to suggest the ESA program had created unprecedented strain on the state budget.
The Heritage Foundation’s Matt Ladner and Jason Bedrick have already exposed a litany of deceptive claims flowing from outlets like 12News, while more prestigious national news organizations like The Washington Post have seen their recent anti-ESA narratives similarly debunked. Yet none of these outlets have expressed any contrition for their deceptive coverage.
Indeed, in perhaps the richest of ironies, Harris’ 12News team recently attacked ESAs for “hurting” high-performing schools like Arizona charter network BASIS by competing with it for students. Never mind that Harris previously attacked BASIS for its alleged poor stewardship of taxpayer funds. Now that it is clear he and the media were on the wrong side of that school choice debate as well, they have simply shifted to a new enemy in their war on parents.
Looking at the whole of Arizona’s education landscape, there is no question that those who seek to defraud the state—whether via the traditional public school system or its competitors—should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But if there is a scandal in our education system, it is the dishonest reporting by journalists who are more disturbed by parental empowerment than by the tens of billions of dollars squandered year after year in chronically poor performing public schools.
Matt Beienburg is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute.
