Founded in 1984, FreedomWorks is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has hundreds of thousands of grassroots volunteers nationwide. The organization is chaired by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armeyand the President is Matt Kibbe.
FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity both originated from a campaign called Citizens for a Sound Economy, which split in two in 2004. CSE was set up by businessman David Koch (Koch Industries).
According to FreedomWorks, its six core issues are fundamental tax reform, scrapping the federal tax code in favor of a flat tax; Social Security reform to include large personal retirement accounts [PRAs] for individual workers; tort reform to end alleged lawsuit abuse; school choice to increase parental control and competition in education; economic growth to push for allegedly "pro-growth" regulatory and trade policy changes; and welfare reform to emphasize work, personal responsibility, and greater access to capital. Funding? According to the media watchdog group Media Matters for America,
FreedomWorks has also received funding from Verizon and SBC (now AT&T). Other FreedomWorks funders have included Philip Morris and foundations controlled by the Scaife family, according to tax filings and other records.[19][20] It also receives funding through the sale of insurance policies through which policyholders automatically become members of FreedomWorks.
FreedomWorks is closely tied to its founder, corporate lobbyist and former Republican Congressman Dick Armey, whose former lobbying firm DLA Piper from which he resigned in August 2009, represents Bristol Myers Squibb, among other pharmaceutical companies.
The Koch family foundations were the largest donors to FreedomWorks' parent organization, Citizens for a Sound Economy, contributing nearly $13 million between 1985 and 2005.
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