Rowena Itchon
Blog
The Streets of San Francisco
Lt. Mike Stone: You saw what he did, arrest him! Inspector Steve Keller: No. I didn’t become a cop to arrest street poopers. I quit. Lt. Mike Stone: Oh yeah, where you gonna go? Inspector Steve Keller: I’m going back to school — Berkeley Law. [A conversation between Stone and ...
Rowena Itchon
July 24, 2018
Blog
A post-Janus California — will we look more like Wisconsin or Michigan?
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision on Janus, the State Controller’s Office announced that beginning in July, it would stop deducting “fair share fees” from the paychecks of state workers who are not full union members. The fair share fee, or agency fee, is the fee that’s charged ...
Rowena Itchon
July 16, 2018
Blog
Riddle: Who is single, has no kids, and getting a tax increase?
Tax Calculator Part 2 In my last blog, I ran some numbers on the Tax Foundation’s new tax calculator to show the average tax cut for California households by congressional district under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But I thought what would be even more interesting is to ...
Rowena Itchon
July 4, 2018
Blog
How Much Will You Save From the Trump Tax Cuts?
Leave it to the Tax Foundation to come with this cool online calculator to figure out how much you will save in taxes from the Trump tax cuts. The calculator asks you to plug in your AGI, your filing status (single or married), even details such as your pre-tax 401k ...
Rowena Itchon
June 27, 2018
Blog
Kilauea Volcanic Eruptions Spike Pensions for Hawaii’s Emergency Workers
“Pension risk includes lava,” said Keli’i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, a sister free-market think tank in Hawaii. Recently, the Grassroot Institute hosted an event titled “Navigating risk at Hawaii’s public pension system.” Thom Williams, executive director of the Hawaii Employees’ Retirement System (ERS), discussed how unpredictable events such ...
Rowena Itchon
June 12, 2018
Blog
Assembly Offers $120 million Bait to UC to Stop 401(k) plans
The great investor Warren Buffett once said, “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” UC President Janet Napolitano probably had similar thoughts when she wrote to the Assembly opposing their offer ...
Rowena Itchon
June 4, 2018
Blog
With California’s Rising Gas Prices, Driving Won’t Be So ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ This Summer
She drives real fast and she drives real hard, She’s the terror of Colorado Boulevard. — The Little Old Lady from Pasadena, The Beach Boys, 1964 I loved this song when I was growing up, and I love it even more now that PRI’s Southern California office is on the ...
Rowena Itchon
May 24, 2018
Blog
Is Buying Stock in Companies That Spend a Lot on Lobbying a Good Investment Strategy?
We’re all hearing it: the bull market is “long on the tooth,” and the market volatility we’ve seen so far this year is a sign that a big correction, or even a bear market, may be around the corner. Interest rate fears, trade wars, and the ballooning debt are all ...
Rowena Itchon
May 16, 2018
Agriculture
Victor Davis Hanson on the Wisdom of the Ancients
Spending time in April in New York, my PRI colleagues and I attended The New Criterion’s annual gala dinner which honored Victor Davis Hanson with the literary journal’s Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. In his introductory remarks, Roger Kimball, the editor and publisher of The New ...
Rowena Itchon
May 7, 2018
Blog
Today is California Tax Freedom Day
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. It’s especially cruel for Californians because today, April 23, is the day when California taxpayers have collectively earned enough money to pay their federal, state, and local tax bill for the year, according to the Tax Foundation. After working for nearly four ...
Rowena Itchon
April 23, 2018
The Streets of San Francisco
Lt. Mike Stone: You saw what he did, arrest him! Inspector Steve Keller: No. I didn’t become a cop to arrest street poopers. I quit. Lt. Mike Stone: Oh yeah, where you gonna go? Inspector Steve Keller: I’m going back to school — Berkeley Law. [A conversation between Stone and ...
A post-Janus California — will we look more like Wisconsin or Michigan?
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision on Janus, the State Controller’s Office announced that beginning in July, it would stop deducting “fair share fees” from the paychecks of state workers who are not full union members. The fair share fee, or agency fee, is the fee that’s charged ...
Riddle: Who is single, has no kids, and getting a tax increase?
Tax Calculator Part 2 In my last blog, I ran some numbers on the Tax Foundation’s new tax calculator to show the average tax cut for California households by congressional district under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But I thought what would be even more interesting is to ...
How Much Will You Save From the Trump Tax Cuts?
Leave it to the Tax Foundation to come with this cool online calculator to figure out how much you will save in taxes from the Trump tax cuts. The calculator asks you to plug in your AGI, your filing status (single or married), even details such as your pre-tax 401k ...
Kilauea Volcanic Eruptions Spike Pensions for Hawaii’s Emergency Workers
“Pension risk includes lava,” said Keli’i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, a sister free-market think tank in Hawaii. Recently, the Grassroot Institute hosted an event titled “Navigating risk at Hawaii’s public pension system.” Thom Williams, executive director of the Hawaii Employees’ Retirement System (ERS), discussed how unpredictable events such ...
Assembly Offers $120 million Bait to UC to Stop 401(k) plans
The great investor Warren Buffett once said, “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” UC President Janet Napolitano probably had similar thoughts when she wrote to the Assembly opposing their offer ...
With California’s Rising Gas Prices, Driving Won’t Be So ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ This Summer
She drives real fast and she drives real hard, She’s the terror of Colorado Boulevard. — The Little Old Lady from Pasadena, The Beach Boys, 1964 I loved this song when I was growing up, and I love it even more now that PRI’s Southern California office is on the ...
Is Buying Stock in Companies That Spend a Lot on Lobbying a Good Investment Strategy?
We’re all hearing it: the bull market is “long on the tooth,” and the market volatility we’ve seen so far this year is a sign that a big correction, or even a bear market, may be around the corner. Interest rate fears, trade wars, and the ballooning debt are all ...
Victor Davis Hanson on the Wisdom of the Ancients
Spending time in April in New York, my PRI colleagues and I attended The New Criterion’s annual gala dinner which honored Victor Davis Hanson with the literary journal’s Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. In his introductory remarks, Roger Kimball, the editor and publisher of The New ...
Today is California Tax Freedom Day
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. It’s especially cruel for Californians because today, April 23, is the day when California taxpayers have collectively earned enough money to pay their federal, state, and local tax bill for the year, according to the Tax Foundation. After working for nearly four ...