About Beacon

The Beacon Center is Tennessee’s premier free market public policy organization. Beacon is pound for pound the most effective and efficient state-level think tank on the planet. With a staff of just a dozen, Beacon has achieved remarkable policy and legal victories that have empowered Tennesseans to reclaim and protect their freedoms. Among our accomplishments, we have:

• Led the effort to repeal the state death tax and Hall Income Tax, becoming just the second state in history to eliminate an income tax and returning billions of dollars back to Tennesseans’ pockets.
• Enshrined right-to-work into our state constitution.
• Enacted the nation’s fourth education savings account program, Tennessee’s first private school choice program, and ushered in statewide universal school choice in January 2025.
• Advanced free market healthcare reforms, including direct primary care, an overhaul of Tennessee’s certificate of need laws, Medicaid work requirements, and Right to Try.
• Helped usher in the nation’s first Right to Earn a Living Act to bring about occupational licensing reform, and successfully repealed multiple licensing laws, resulting in Tennessee leading the nation in the reduction of licensing barriers over the past five years.
• Combined strategic litigation and community engagement to invalidate Nashville’s home business ban—the most restrictive in the nation—and freeing up 14,000 businesses to operate from home.

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