Kerry Jackson

Blog

New Studies Confirm the Obvious – $15 Minimum Wage Hurts California Job Opportunities

The negative impacts of setting — and increasing — minimum wages should be beyond debate by now. The economic science is settled. Yet California policymakers continue to believe in unicorn economic fantasies. For example, more than a dozen cities and counties in the Bay Area have changed their minimum-wage ordinances ...
Blog

California Can Expect More of the Same from Sacramento in 2018

There are no fortune tellers at PRI, but it isn’t hard to foresee what is likely to happen in California in 2018. First, it’s a sure bet that the Legislature will pass a boxcar load of unneeded, heavy-handed and odious policies when lawmakers reconvene on Jan. 3. One that will ...
California

What California Should Do To Ease Housing Crisis

In September, Sacramento lawmakers passed more than a dozen bills aiming to begin healing the state’s housing sore. It was, to their thinking, “Housing Day” in California. Two weeks later, legislators joined Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco as he signed what he called “15 good bills.” “Today, California begins ...
Blog

Another #1 Ranking California Should Not Celebrate

It’s one thing to be considered a Judicial Hellhole. It’s another thing altogether to hold that distinction year after year . . . after year. But, just as it is with so many state rankings, California isn’t a newcomer at the wrong end of a list. It’s a perennial resident ...
California

CAPITAL IDEAS: Court Should Pave Way for State to Plan for Next Drought

Download the PDF Things became so heated during the state’s painful six-year man-made drought that government agencies asked some Californians to snitch on neighbors they thought used too much water. Things are calmer now, but just as surely as clear skies follow rain, there’ll be another drought. It would be ...
California

California Middle Class Look For A Winning Hand in Las Vegas

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Apparently, this is true of Californians, as well: If they happen to be in Vegas, there’s a good chance they’re going to be staying there. California has a leakage problem. Not only are businesses leaving the state in waves, people are ...
California

While California Put on ‘Road Diet,’ Drivers Still Stuck in Traffic Gridlock

Quick, name the place where drivers suffer through maybe the worst traffic on Earth while policymakers are committed to making it altogether intolerable. Yes, of course it’s California. Earlier this year, Inrix, a transportation analytics firm, ranked Los Angeles as the city with the worst traffic in the world, as ...
Blog

Political Investment Decisions Hurt Taxpayers, State Retirees

The most recent estimate says that California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest public employee pension fund in the nation with about 1.8 million beneficiaries, has an unfunded liability of roughly $138 billion with total obligations of around $435 billion. While part of that gap is due to the government ...
California

Fantasy Train

When the father of the current governor of California was governor, he was a driving force behind the highway building boom that gilded the already Golden State. Aggressive road construction and free-flowing water were Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr.’s lasting legacies. By contrast, Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr. is ...
Agriculture

Cedar Point Nursery Case Could End Trespassing on Private Land

Unions have long had government-protected privileges that no other institution or organization has. They hold monopolies as exclusive collective bargaining units; can collect dues before paychecks are even issued (government is the only other institution that can withhold earnings); and have forced unionization on, and collected dues from, workers who ...
Blog

New Studies Confirm the Obvious – $15 Minimum Wage Hurts California Job Opportunities

The negative impacts of setting — and increasing — minimum wages should be beyond debate by now. The economic science is settled. Yet California policymakers continue to believe in unicorn economic fantasies. For example, more than a dozen cities and counties in the Bay Area have changed their minimum-wage ordinances ...
Blog

California Can Expect More of the Same from Sacramento in 2018

There are no fortune tellers at PRI, but it isn’t hard to foresee what is likely to happen in California in 2018. First, it’s a sure bet that the Legislature will pass a boxcar load of unneeded, heavy-handed and odious policies when lawmakers reconvene on Jan. 3. One that will ...
California

What California Should Do To Ease Housing Crisis

In September, Sacramento lawmakers passed more than a dozen bills aiming to begin healing the state’s housing sore. It was, to their thinking, “Housing Day” in California. Two weeks later, legislators joined Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco as he signed what he called “15 good bills.” “Today, California begins ...
Blog

Another #1 Ranking California Should Not Celebrate

It’s one thing to be considered a Judicial Hellhole. It’s another thing altogether to hold that distinction year after year . . . after year. But, just as it is with so many state rankings, California isn’t a newcomer at the wrong end of a list. It’s a perennial resident ...
California

CAPITAL IDEAS: Court Should Pave Way for State to Plan for Next Drought

Download the PDF Things became so heated during the state’s painful six-year man-made drought that government agencies asked some Californians to snitch on neighbors they thought used too much water. Things are calmer now, but just as surely as clear skies follow rain, there’ll be another drought. It would be ...
California

California Middle Class Look For A Winning Hand in Las Vegas

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Apparently, this is true of Californians, as well: If they happen to be in Vegas, there’s a good chance they’re going to be staying there. California has a leakage problem. Not only are businesses leaving the state in waves, people are ...
California

While California Put on ‘Road Diet,’ Drivers Still Stuck in Traffic Gridlock

Quick, name the place where drivers suffer through maybe the worst traffic on Earth while policymakers are committed to making it altogether intolerable. Yes, of course it’s California. Earlier this year, Inrix, a transportation analytics firm, ranked Los Angeles as the city with the worst traffic in the world, as ...
Blog

Political Investment Decisions Hurt Taxpayers, State Retirees

The most recent estimate says that California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest public employee pension fund in the nation with about 1.8 million beneficiaries, has an unfunded liability of roughly $138 billion with total obligations of around $435 billion. While part of that gap is due to the government ...
California

Fantasy Train

When the father of the current governor of California was governor, he was a driving force behind the highway building boom that gilded the already Golden State. Aggressive road construction and free-flowing water were Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr.’s lasting legacies. By contrast, Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr. is ...
Agriculture

Cedar Point Nursery Case Could End Trespassing on Private Land

Unions have long had government-protected privileges that no other institution or organization has. They hold monopolies as exclusive collective bargaining units; can collect dues before paychecks are even issued (government is the only other institution that can withhold earnings); and have forced unionization on, and collected dues from, workers who ...
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