Petition: Tell Billionaire-Funded Groups to Return Small Business PPP Loans

The Freedom Foundation and Washington Policy Center

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), faux anti-government groups have reaped millions in federal welfare from funds that were intended for small businesses dealing with the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The failing “Freedom” Foundation and Washington Policy Center took a whopping $700,000 - 2,000,000 from the taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

We’re calling on these billionaire-funded front groups to return this money now.

These anti-worker organizations have spent decades spending their wealthy benefactors largesse fighting against policies that allow our government to support working families. They’ve fought and argued against raising the wages of public workers, increasing education funding, and policies that would allow workers to retire with dignity.

The biggest hypocrisy of all? The “Freedom” Foundation freely accepted COVID-19 bailouts while they were busy downplaying the pandemic and spreading unproven conspiracy theories about masks and the mortality rate of the deadly disease putting workers, the elderly and communities of color at greater risk.

The PPP money was meant for small businesses in crisis that don’t have access to big loans or billionaire funders. This hardly describes these organization who each receive millions from some of the wealthiest right-wing foundations in the country. By draining the PPP funds that much faster, these regressive right-wing groups made sure more desperate Mom and Pop operations would come up empty-handed.

Groups funded by billionaires shouldn’t receive this aid.

Sign our petition NOW and demand that the billionaire-funded “Freedom” Foundation and the Washington Policy Center return the money immediately to help struggling small businesses in Washington State.

To: The Freedom Foundation and Washington Policy Center
From: [Your Name]

We, the undersigned, are calling on you to return the money you received from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) now.

This money was intended for small businesses dealing with the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic, not for organizations like yours that receive millions in funding from private donors. By accepting PPP money, meant for small businesses in crisis, you endanger the small Mom and Pop operations and small businesses that bring life and vitality to the Northwest.

If you truly care about limited government and small businesses as you so often claim, you will return these funds and give the small businesses who actually deserve it a chance to recover in the wake of this crisis.