Pacific Research Institute
Blog
The 2022-23 School Year Remains Grim for Special Education Students
The school year has started, and parents and students are hopeful that education has returned to “normal” from the last three school years of COVID pandemic-era closures and online learning. For students, the California public school system crumbled under the closures and online classes offered little to no growth in ...
Blog
ESG Has Become An Obstacle to Resolving The State Unfunded Pension Crisis
By Tim Anaya and Wayne Winegarden Even with generous assumptions, the state unfunded pension crisis is worsening. The market surge of 2021 helped reduce the unfunded gap, but then came the bear market of 2022. As a recent Wall Street Journal Headline put it, Market Rout Sends State and City ...
Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos in conversation with Lance Izumi
Our guest this week is Secretary Betsy DeVos in conversation with Lance Izumi, senior director of PRI’s Center for Education. Sec. DeVos is author of the new book Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child (Center Street Books). They discuss how we ...
Commentary
The Electric Car Snow Job
By Andrew Fillat & Henry Miller The United States is being taken for a very expensive ride by an unholy alliance between climate ideologues and business opportunists, who have exerted undue influence over public opinion and government institutions in the name of climate change. The misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, signed ...
California
Housing First programs aren’t working
By Wayne Winegarden & Kerry Jackson Project Homekey, California’s answer to its homelessness troubles, came with great promises. But like many government plans before it, it’s fallen short, and isn’t likely to recover. California’s homeless population exploded from about 114,000 in 2014 to more than 161,000 in 2020, the most ...
Commentary
Bad Piled on Bad
By Henry Miller & Andrew Fillat Less than a month after the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, the White House is reportedly contemplating declaration of a “national climate emergency.” On July 20, at a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts, President Biden said, “Climate change is an emergency. And in the coming ...
Climate Change
When it Comes to Food Safety, ‘Organic’ Can Be a Risky Business
By Henry Miller and Kathleen Hefferon Many consumers are committed to organic products for reasons that are more emotional than logical. They frequently define their purchasing choices in terms of what they consider to be “wholesome and natural,” which often translates to the absence of “synthetic” inputs such as fertilizer ...
Agriculture
Eric Edwards and Sara Sutherland – How Federal Bureaucracy Hinder Projects to Reduce Wildfire Risk
With California’s fire season in full swing, Eric Edwards and Sara Sutherland, senior research fellows with the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Montana, join us to discuss their new paper detailing how bureaucratic federal environmental reviews – much like the California Environmental Quality Act – add delay and ...
Commentary
Supreme Court broadens school choice options, but states need to act
By Lance Izumi and McKenzie Richards While freedom has been under attack in many areas of life, the freedom of parents to choose the best education for their children has just expanded thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision. The case, Carson v. Makin, involved a Maine law that prevented parents and their children from using state-provided ...
Business & Economics
Wayne Winegarden – Soaring Gas Prices
We discuss with Wayne what’s on everyone’s mind – inflation, rising gas prices, a possible recession, and whose to blame. He cuts through all the finger-pointing in Washington and Sacramento and offers ways that will truly help lower prices.
The 2022-23 School Year Remains Grim for Special Education Students
The school year has started, and parents and students are hopeful that education has returned to “normal” from the last three school years of COVID pandemic-era closures and online learning. For students, the California public school system crumbled under the closures and online classes offered little to no growth in ...
ESG Has Become An Obstacle to Resolving The State Unfunded Pension Crisis
By Tim Anaya and Wayne Winegarden Even with generous assumptions, the state unfunded pension crisis is worsening. The market surge of 2021 helped reduce the unfunded gap, but then came the bear market of 2022. As a recent Wall Street Journal Headline put it, Market Rout Sends State and City ...
Secretary Betsy DeVos in conversation with Lance Izumi
Our guest this week is Secretary Betsy DeVos in conversation with Lance Izumi, senior director of PRI’s Center for Education. Sec. DeVos is author of the new book Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child (Center Street Books). They discuss how we ...
The Electric Car Snow Job
By Andrew Fillat & Henry Miller The United States is being taken for a very expensive ride by an unholy alliance between climate ideologues and business opportunists, who have exerted undue influence over public opinion and government institutions in the name of climate change. The misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, signed ...
Housing First programs aren’t working
By Wayne Winegarden & Kerry Jackson Project Homekey, California’s answer to its homelessness troubles, came with great promises. But like many government plans before it, it’s fallen short, and isn’t likely to recover. California’s homeless population exploded from about 114,000 in 2014 to more than 161,000 in 2020, the most ...
Bad Piled on Bad
By Henry Miller & Andrew Fillat Less than a month after the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, the White House is reportedly contemplating declaration of a “national climate emergency.” On July 20, at a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts, President Biden said, “Climate change is an emergency. And in the coming ...
When it Comes to Food Safety, ‘Organic’ Can Be a Risky Business
By Henry Miller and Kathleen Hefferon Many consumers are committed to organic products for reasons that are more emotional than logical. They frequently define their purchasing choices in terms of what they consider to be “wholesome and natural,” which often translates to the absence of “synthetic” inputs such as fertilizer ...
Eric Edwards and Sara Sutherland – How Federal Bureaucracy Hinder Projects to Reduce Wildfire Risk
With California’s fire season in full swing, Eric Edwards and Sara Sutherland, senior research fellows with the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Montana, join us to discuss their new paper detailing how bureaucratic federal environmental reviews – much like the California Environmental Quality Act – add delay and ...
Supreme Court broadens school choice options, but states need to act
By Lance Izumi and McKenzie Richards While freedom has been under attack in many areas of life, the freedom of parents to choose the best education for their children has just expanded thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision. The case, Carson v. Makin, involved a Maine law that prevented parents and their children from using state-provided ...
Wayne Winegarden – Soaring Gas Prices
We discuss with Wayne what’s on everyone’s mind – inflation, rising gas prices, a possible recession, and whose to blame. He cuts through all the finger-pointing in Washington and Sacramento and offers ways that will truly help lower prices.
