California
California
Making Housing More Affordable
Gov. Jerry Brown is an easy target for the conservative- and libertarian-minded, both from within and without of California. He’s in many ways the quintessential big-government Democrat. But not everything Brown does is wrong. Consider, for instance, his level-headed plan for getting government out of the way of developers who ...
California
We Need A Prop 13-Style Ballot Initiative For Gasoline And Diesel Taxes
Attorney General Kamala Harris has reportedly opened an investigation of oil refiners over gasoline prices. But if she truly wants to know why gasoline and diesel cost so much in California, she’ll be grilling the wrong suspects. She should instead investigate the general assembly. Politicians love to conduct oil industry ...
California
Driving Up Labor Costs Drives Down Jobs
Gov. Jerry Brown has advised lawmakers to expect a slowdown in tax revenue, a warning he issued weeks after he signed into law a bill raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. Maybe he should consider that there’s a connection. When Brown signed the minimum wage ...
Blackouts
CAPITAL IDEAS: California Following Dangerous Energy Path
Read the full brief On a sweltering June day, the California Independent System Operator (CalISO), the group that oversees the state’s electricity grid, issued the first “flex alert” of the year. That same week, a major California utility announced it had reached an agreement with the environmental community to close ...
California
Putting the Legislature on (72-Hour) Notice
In California, a bill can start in the Legislature with a title like “The Prosperity For All Act,” yet end up being a law regulating the manufacture, sale and use of dog leashes or floor tiles. Or a law that adds another tax. Or a law that does whatever lawmakers ...
Agriculture
Smaller Government Needed in California
As much as the Brexit vote, coming just before Canada’s and America’s own independence celebrations, drove the West’s elitists to call those who don’t agree with them “rubes” and far worse, it also inspired other autonomy movements to increase their efforts to break away from those ruling them from a ...
Commentary
Don’t buy the ColoradoCare single payer snake oil
The good people of Colorado must be smoking something these days. That’s the only explanation for the decision by 156,000 of the state’s more than 3 million registered voters to endorse a November ballot initiative that would create a statewide single-payer health care system. Patients in single-payer systems elsewhere must ...
Business & Economics
Public employee pensions an enormous problem
In January 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown bragged about the state’s new commitment to fiscal responsibility. He talked about “living within our means and not spending what we don’t have.” A year later, in his State of the State address, Brown insisted that “fiscal discipline is not the enemy of our ...
Agriculture
Water Markets May Help California Better Manage Its Water
California’s famous moniker – the Golden State – is becoming all too accurate as the state enters the fifth year of drought and the summer heat begins to dry out its rolling hillsides. A lackluster El Niño failed to deliver a promised deluge of rain and ultimately brought only an ...
California
CAPITAL IDEAS: Cal Exodus
If California had an official state vehicle, it should be the moving van. Nothing could better illustrate the exodus from the Golden State by companies looking for a friendlier business environment, and individuals seeking job opportunities. Read the brief
Making Housing More Affordable
Gov. Jerry Brown is an easy target for the conservative- and libertarian-minded, both from within and without of California. He’s in many ways the quintessential big-government Democrat. But not everything Brown does is wrong. Consider, for instance, his level-headed plan for getting government out of the way of developers who ...
We Need A Prop 13-Style Ballot Initiative For Gasoline And Diesel Taxes
Attorney General Kamala Harris has reportedly opened an investigation of oil refiners over gasoline prices. But if she truly wants to know why gasoline and diesel cost so much in California, she’ll be grilling the wrong suspects. She should instead investigate the general assembly. Politicians love to conduct oil industry ...
Driving Up Labor Costs Drives Down Jobs
Gov. Jerry Brown has advised lawmakers to expect a slowdown in tax revenue, a warning he issued weeks after he signed into law a bill raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. Maybe he should consider that there’s a connection. When Brown signed the minimum wage ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: California Following Dangerous Energy Path
Read the full brief On a sweltering June day, the California Independent System Operator (CalISO), the group that oversees the state’s electricity grid, issued the first “flex alert” of the year. That same week, a major California utility announced it had reached an agreement with the environmental community to close ...
Putting the Legislature on (72-Hour) Notice
In California, a bill can start in the Legislature with a title like “The Prosperity For All Act,” yet end up being a law regulating the manufacture, sale and use of dog leashes or floor tiles. Or a law that adds another tax. Or a law that does whatever lawmakers ...
Smaller Government Needed in California
As much as the Brexit vote, coming just before Canada’s and America’s own independence celebrations, drove the West’s elitists to call those who don’t agree with them “rubes” and far worse, it also inspired other autonomy movements to increase their efforts to break away from those ruling them from a ...
Don’t buy the ColoradoCare single payer snake oil
The good people of Colorado must be smoking something these days. That’s the only explanation for the decision by 156,000 of the state’s more than 3 million registered voters to endorse a November ballot initiative that would create a statewide single-payer health care system. Patients in single-payer systems elsewhere must ...
Public employee pensions an enormous problem
In January 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown bragged about the state’s new commitment to fiscal responsibility. He talked about “living within our means and not spending what we don’t have.” A year later, in his State of the State address, Brown insisted that “fiscal discipline is not the enemy of our ...
Water Markets May Help California Better Manage Its Water
California’s famous moniker – the Golden State – is becoming all too accurate as the state enters the fifth year of drought and the summer heat begins to dry out its rolling hillsides. A lackluster El Niño failed to deliver a promised deluge of rain and ultimately brought only an ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: Cal Exodus
If California had an official state vehicle, it should be the moving van. Nothing could better illustrate the exodus from the Golden State by companies looking for a friendlier business environment, and individuals seeking job opportunities. Read the brief
