Poverty

Blog

This Year’s Budget Earns a “Participation Trophy”

It’s amazing what a difference one voter-approved proposition can make.  The Legislature is poised again to pass a budget before the June 15 constitutional deadline.  Gov. Brown has until June 30 to sign it into law. Budgets used to be a lengthy, messy fight at the Capitol. Back in the ...
Commentary

Health Care Premiums Will Soar Again In 2019 — Thanks, Obama

ObamaCare enrollees should brace themselves for another year of double-digit premium hikes. Average premiums for plans sold through the state and federal insurance exchanges will jump as much as 32% next year, according to a recent report from actuarial firm Milliman. Consumers in some markets could face 80% rate hikes, ...
Blog

Free Markets 101: Free Markets Enable Prosperity and Compassion

The U.S. economy has generated more wealth for more people than any other economic system in human history, and it’s not even close. What began as a small group of colonies clustered near the eastern seaboard of a mostly empty continent founded by political and religious refugees somehow become more ...
California

State Should Embrace Charities, Nonprofits to End Homeless Crisis

California, long considered a land of golden opportunity, has a homeless problem. To the north of San Diego, not far from the gates of the fantasy world at Disneyland, a two-mile long homeless camp reminds us of a real and ugly world. Street people are slowing rail traffic between Sacramento ...
Commentary

The State’s Dangerous Flirtation with Drug Rationing

Massachusetts may soon stop paying for some of the lifesaving medicines its poorest residents count on. State officials recently requested permission from the federal government to restructure MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program. If their waiver is approved, a small group of state bureaucrats will determine which drugs are off limits ...
Commentary

In Progressive America, All Roads Lead to Single-Payer

Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., recently introduced the “Choose Medicare Act,” which would give every American the option to buy into Medicare. Their colleagues have already rolled out three other bills that would provide for a more limited Medicare buy-in, a Medicaid buy-in, and a full-fledged, government-run, ...
Blog

Not Much to Celebrate as California’s Economy Grows on Paper

California’s economy has now surpassed that of United Kingdom, making it the fifth-largest in the world if it were its own country. Despite this growth, and in contrast to the perception that all is well in California because the economy looks so robust, the Golden State’s economy is not quite ...
Blog

It’s 2018 and We’re Already Fighting About the Next Census

The battle over the 2020 census has already begun. No, your eyes are not deceiving you.  The calendar on the wall does say May 2018. The census is a multi-year process that involves lots of planning and organizing to design the survey and get all Americans to complete it.  In ...
California

What’s next for housing relief after defeat of SB 827?

A Senate bill that would have helped relieve California’s bleak housing situation has died in the Legislature. It was killed by anti-development groups and local governments that wish to continue dictating the rules of home construction. So what comes next? Senate Bill 827 should have been noncontroversial legislation that sailed ...
Commentary

States Can’t Afford Medicaid Expansion — Neither Can Patients

This fall’s midterm election ballot just got a little longer in Utah. In mid-April, progressive activists announced that they’d gathered enough signatures to force a November referendum on Medicaid expansion. Utah isn’t the only red state flirting with extending free government health insurance to able-bodied, childless adults. Within weeks, activists in Idaho ...
Blog

This Year’s Budget Earns a “Participation Trophy”

It’s amazing what a difference one voter-approved proposition can make.  The Legislature is poised again to pass a budget before the June 15 constitutional deadline.  Gov. Brown has until June 30 to sign it into law. Budgets used to be a lengthy, messy fight at the Capitol. Back in the ...
Commentary

Health Care Premiums Will Soar Again In 2019 — Thanks, Obama

ObamaCare enrollees should brace themselves for another year of double-digit premium hikes. Average premiums for plans sold through the state and federal insurance exchanges will jump as much as 32% next year, according to a recent report from actuarial firm Milliman. Consumers in some markets could face 80% rate hikes, ...
Blog

Free Markets 101: Free Markets Enable Prosperity and Compassion

The U.S. economy has generated more wealth for more people than any other economic system in human history, and it’s not even close. What began as a small group of colonies clustered near the eastern seaboard of a mostly empty continent founded by political and religious refugees somehow become more ...
California

State Should Embrace Charities, Nonprofits to End Homeless Crisis

California, long considered a land of golden opportunity, has a homeless problem. To the north of San Diego, not far from the gates of the fantasy world at Disneyland, a two-mile long homeless camp reminds us of a real and ugly world. Street people are slowing rail traffic between Sacramento ...
Commentary

The State’s Dangerous Flirtation with Drug Rationing

Massachusetts may soon stop paying for some of the lifesaving medicines its poorest residents count on. State officials recently requested permission from the federal government to restructure MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program. If their waiver is approved, a small group of state bureaucrats will determine which drugs are off limits ...
Commentary

In Progressive America, All Roads Lead to Single-Payer

Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., recently introduced the “Choose Medicare Act,” which would give every American the option to buy into Medicare. Their colleagues have already rolled out three other bills that would provide for a more limited Medicare buy-in, a Medicaid buy-in, and a full-fledged, government-run, ...
Blog

Not Much to Celebrate as California’s Economy Grows on Paper

California’s economy has now surpassed that of United Kingdom, making it the fifth-largest in the world if it were its own country. Despite this growth, and in contrast to the perception that all is well in California because the economy looks so robust, the Golden State’s economy is not quite ...
Blog

It’s 2018 and We’re Already Fighting About the Next Census

The battle over the 2020 census has already begun. No, your eyes are not deceiving you.  The calendar on the wall does say May 2018. The census is a multi-year process that involves lots of planning and organizing to design the survey and get all Americans to complete it.  In ...
California

What’s next for housing relief after defeat of SB 827?

A Senate bill that would have helped relieve California’s bleak housing situation has died in the Legislature. It was killed by anti-development groups and local governments that wish to continue dictating the rules of home construction. So what comes next? Senate Bill 827 should have been noncontroversial legislation that sailed ...
Commentary

States Can’t Afford Medicaid Expansion — Neither Can Patients

This fall’s midterm election ballot just got a little longer in Utah. In mid-April, progressive activists announced that they’d gathered enough signatures to force a November referendum on Medicaid expansion. Utah isn’t the only red state flirting with extending free government health insurance to able-bodied, childless adults. Within weeks, activists in Idaho ...
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