California
Business & Economics
New Pacific Research Institute Study Finds that “Plan Bay Area” Will Drive Housing Prices Higher, Intensify Traffic, and Increase Air Pollution
The Pacific Research Institute released a new study on the proposed Plan Bay Area. The study describes the proposals regulatory overreach and its detrimental consequences for Bay Area residents and the metropolitan economy. In addition, the study shows that improved fuel efficiency by 2035 will more than meet the requirements ...
Commentary
Beware of a Forestry Standard Monopoly
Before any policy is changed, the potential economic consequences that they can cause should be considered. The Community Reinvestment Act and other affordable housing regulations, for instance, were supposed to increase loan availability to under-served communities. Unintentionally, these regulations played an important role in creating the housing boom and bust ...
Commentary
ObamaCare Doesn’t Deserve Credit For Health Cost Slowdown
America’s health spending is down, growing at the lowest rate in over 50 years. The Obama administration has been quick to take credit, boasting that the Affordable Care Act has “begun to curb rising health costs across the system.” The president is indeed responsible for the slowdown in health spending. ...
California
2013 Supplement to the 2011 Environmental Almanac
The reduction in air pollution continues to be the most successful domain of pollution reduction since the first Earth Day in 1970. Since the first edition of this Almanac two years ago, reductions in air pollution have been astonishing. The EPA recently updated its inventory of ambient air pollution levels ...
Business & Economics
California drives away businesses, tax receipts
Flaresun Fire Group is an innovative start-up that makes equipment designed to help first responders rescue people trapped underground or down steep embankments. Flaresun is also notable because its one of the latest companies to flee California thanks to the Golden States punitive corporate tax rates. Between 1992 and 2008, ...
Business & Economics
New Analysis of Orange County Toll Roads
New Analysis of Orange County Toll Roads Reveals Unsustainable Debt Levels, Cost Overruns, Financial Mismanagement, and an est. $1.7 Billion in Taxpayer Subsidies Proposed refinancing plans will add hundreds of millions in debt without addressing fundamental issues, former California Finance Director Donna Arduin finds The Pacific Research Institute released a ...
Business & Economics
Municipal Bankruptcy: An Overview for Local Officials
Cities and other municipalities falling on hard financial times is nothing new, but it is rare that any such entity files for bankruptcy as a way of addressing its massive debts. Out of nearly 89,500 municipalities in the country, there were just 239 municipal bankruptcy filings between 1980 and 2010.1 ...
Health Care
Myths and Realities of Obamacare
Introduction Three years ago on March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordability Act (Obamacare) was signed into law. With the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 28, 2012 that the individual mandate is constitutional under Congress power to tax and the November 6 election results, the law is in ...
Commentary
Obamacare’s not-so-universal coverage
Nearly 10 percent of U.S. will remain uninsured under Obamacare. Federal regulators just issued rules governing the individual coverage mandate within President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which, starting in 2014, will require all Americans to secure health insurance or pay a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of their income, ...
Commentary
Obamacare’s Health Exchanges Are Customer Free Zones
Last month, the CEO of the nations largest health insurance company warned that he and his peers may balk at participating in Obamacares insurance exchanges online, government-run portals where consumers and small businesses without conventional employer-sponsored coverage may shop for policies starting next year. We will only participate in ...
New Pacific Research Institute Study Finds that “Plan Bay Area” Will Drive Housing Prices Higher, Intensify Traffic, and Increase Air Pollution
The Pacific Research Institute released a new study on the proposed Plan Bay Area. The study describes the proposals regulatory overreach and its detrimental consequences for Bay Area residents and the metropolitan economy. In addition, the study shows that improved fuel efficiency by 2035 will more than meet the requirements ...
Beware of a Forestry Standard Monopoly
Before any policy is changed, the potential economic consequences that they can cause should be considered. The Community Reinvestment Act and other affordable housing regulations, for instance, were supposed to increase loan availability to under-served communities. Unintentionally, these regulations played an important role in creating the housing boom and bust ...
ObamaCare Doesn’t Deserve Credit For Health Cost Slowdown
America’s health spending is down, growing at the lowest rate in over 50 years. The Obama administration has been quick to take credit, boasting that the Affordable Care Act has “begun to curb rising health costs across the system.” The president is indeed responsible for the slowdown in health spending. ...
2013 Supplement to the 2011 Environmental Almanac
The reduction in air pollution continues to be the most successful domain of pollution reduction since the first Earth Day in 1970. Since the first edition of this Almanac two years ago, reductions in air pollution have been astonishing. The EPA recently updated its inventory of ambient air pollution levels ...
California drives away businesses, tax receipts
Flaresun Fire Group is an innovative start-up that makes equipment designed to help first responders rescue people trapped underground or down steep embankments. Flaresun is also notable because its one of the latest companies to flee California thanks to the Golden States punitive corporate tax rates. Between 1992 and 2008, ...
New Analysis of Orange County Toll Roads
New Analysis of Orange County Toll Roads Reveals Unsustainable Debt Levels, Cost Overruns, Financial Mismanagement, and an est. $1.7 Billion in Taxpayer Subsidies Proposed refinancing plans will add hundreds of millions in debt without addressing fundamental issues, former California Finance Director Donna Arduin finds The Pacific Research Institute released a ...
Municipal Bankruptcy: An Overview for Local Officials
Cities and other municipalities falling on hard financial times is nothing new, but it is rare that any such entity files for bankruptcy as a way of addressing its massive debts. Out of nearly 89,500 municipalities in the country, there were just 239 municipal bankruptcy filings between 1980 and 2010.1 ...
Myths and Realities of Obamacare
Introduction Three years ago on March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordability Act (Obamacare) was signed into law. With the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 28, 2012 that the individual mandate is constitutional under Congress power to tax and the November 6 election results, the law is in ...
Obamacare’s not-so-universal coverage
Nearly 10 percent of U.S. will remain uninsured under Obamacare. Federal regulators just issued rules governing the individual coverage mandate within President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which, starting in 2014, will require all Americans to secure health insurance or pay a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of their income, ...
Obamacare’s Health Exchanges Are Customer Free Zones
Last month, the CEO of the nations largest health insurance company warned that he and his peers may balk at participating in Obamacares insurance exchanges online, government-run portals where consumers and small businesses without conventional employer-sponsored coverage may shop for policies starting next year. We will only participate in ...
