Blog
Spending Watch
Spending Watch: The Taxing Wealth Tax
The Taxing Wealth Tax Wayne Winegarden February 2026 To his credit, Governor Newsom is vowing to stop the wealth tax. As we noted in our response to Governor Newsom’s January budget, just the possibility that a 5 percent wealth tax will appear on the November ballot is having a chilling ...
Blog
Healthcare Reform Should Take Aim at Hidden Prices
Effective healthcare reform should address the persistent problem of a system that hides prices, shields middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers and insurers from accountability, and leaves patients with little real leverage. Reforms can lower healthcare costs by increasing transparency, expanding competition, and reducing the influence of middlemen whose practices operate ...
Blog
On Warrants and Searches, A Man’s House Is His Castle
The Fourth Amendment and decades of case law make clear that law enforcement may not enter a residence for search or arrest without a warrant based on a statement of probable cause and signed by a neutral magistrate. Exceptions exist—exigent circumstances, hot pursuit, searches incident to arrest, plain view, consent—but ...
Blog
California’s urban-mobility plan: more of what’s not working
A glaring example of such obtuseness is the report recently issued by the California State Transportation Agency’s Transit Transformation Task Force. Established by “the transit recovery package signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as part of the 2023-24 state budget,” the panel’s mission was to make “recommendations to grow transit ridership, ...
Blog
Tough Times Ahead for California in 2026
But he won’t be alone. Difficult times are ahead for all Californians. According to Indian government data, that country’s GDP has reached $4.18 trillion in U.S. dollars. By 2030, India’s GDP is projected to be $7.3 trillion. The most recent numbers from the International Monetary Fund, posted in April 2025, has California at $4.1 trillion. The UCLA Anderson School ...
Blog
Energy Markets Still Punish Policy Weakness
Venezuela illustrates how quickly political dysfunction can translate into market risk. Once one of the world’s largest oil producers, the country has spent years constrained by mismanagement, corruption, and chronic instability. The consequence is not just lower output. It is persistent uncertainty that markets price in long before any formal ...
Agriculture
New paper on predator management looks at wolves in the western U.S.
The answer is nuanced and differs based on what each state hopes to achieve by having wolves living within the state’s borders. Each state in the western United States has either developed its own map for success or seems to be grappling with how to address a way forward now. ...
Blog
Treating Drug Trafficking Like a Security Threat Matters at Home
For decades, the United States has responded to drug trafficking primarily through domestic law enforcement and public health frameworks. Those approaches matter, but they hit a wall when drug supply chains are protected by political power abroad. At that point, local enforcement is reacting to the problem, not shaping it. ...
Blog
Deficits may save cities from democratic socialist pipedreams
Deficits may save cities from democratic socialist pipedreams By Sarah Downey | January 23, 2026 In New York City, the newly elected mayor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, has pledged to make free or subsidize everything from rent to groceries, straining the city’s deficit to a projected $12 billion in 2027. ...
Blog
Trump and Newsom are odd bedfellows on housing policy
Now that many populist Republicans have largely abandoned free-market conservatism, it’s getting hard to distinguish dopey Democratic policy ideas from dopey Republican ones. Apparently, the Horseshoe Theory — where each end of the political spectrum is separated by the distance between the ends of a horseshoe rather than at the ends ...
Spending Watch
Spending Watch: The Taxing Wealth Tax
The Taxing Wealth Tax Wayne Winegarden February 2026 To his credit, Governor Newsom is vowing to stop the wealth tax. As we noted in our response to Governor Newsom’s January budget, just the possibility that a 5 percent wealth tax will appear on the November ballot is having a chilling ...
Healthcare Reform Should Take Aim at Hidden Prices
Effective healthcare reform should address the persistent problem of a system that hides prices, shields middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers and insurers from accountability, and leaves patients with little real leverage. Reforms can lower healthcare costs by increasing transparency, expanding competition, and reducing the influence of middlemen whose practices operate ...
On Warrants and Searches, A Man’s House Is His Castle
The Fourth Amendment and decades of case law make clear that law enforcement may not enter a residence for search or arrest without a warrant based on a statement of probable cause and signed by a neutral magistrate. Exceptions exist—exigent circumstances, hot pursuit, searches incident to arrest, plain view, consent—but ...
California’s urban-mobility plan: more of what’s not working
A glaring example of such obtuseness is the report recently issued by the California State Transportation Agency’s Transit Transformation Task Force. Established by “the transit recovery package signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as part of the 2023-24 state budget,” the panel’s mission was to make “recommendations to grow transit ridership, ...
Tough Times Ahead for California in 2026
But he won’t be alone. Difficult times are ahead for all Californians. According to Indian government data, that country’s GDP has reached $4.18 trillion in U.S. dollars. By 2030, India’s GDP is projected to be $7.3 trillion. The most recent numbers from the International Monetary Fund, posted in April 2025, has California at $4.1 trillion. The UCLA Anderson School ...
Energy Markets Still Punish Policy Weakness
Venezuela illustrates how quickly political dysfunction can translate into market risk. Once one of the world’s largest oil producers, the country has spent years constrained by mismanagement, corruption, and chronic instability. The consequence is not just lower output. It is persistent uncertainty that markets price in long before any formal ...
New paper on predator management looks at wolves in the western U.S.
The answer is nuanced and differs based on what each state hopes to achieve by having wolves living within the state’s borders. Each state in the western United States has either developed its own map for success or seems to be grappling with how to address a way forward now. ...
Treating Drug Trafficking Like a Security Threat Matters at Home
For decades, the United States has responded to drug trafficking primarily through domestic law enforcement and public health frameworks. Those approaches matter, but they hit a wall when drug supply chains are protected by political power abroad. At that point, local enforcement is reacting to the problem, not shaping it. ...
Deficits may save cities from democratic socialist pipedreams
Deficits may save cities from democratic socialist pipedreams By Sarah Downey | January 23, 2026 In New York City, the newly elected mayor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, has pledged to make free or subsidize everything from rent to groceries, straining the city’s deficit to a projected $12 billion in 2027. ...
Trump and Newsom are odd bedfellows on housing policy
Now that many populist Republicans have largely abandoned free-market conservatism, it’s getting hard to distinguish dopey Democratic policy ideas from dopey Republican ones. Apparently, the Horseshoe Theory — where each end of the political spectrum is separated by the distance between the ends of a horseshoe rather than at the ends ...
