Blog
Blog
Soda Tax Vote Forces Lawmakers to Eat Carrot or Face Local Tax Spigot Shut Off
Usually around this time of year, you’ll see state lawmakers wielding a big stick. In search of headlines or political points, lawmakers will routinely target some politically incorrect industry with punitive legislation. Unless that industry agrees to eat a legislative carrot of new regulations, taxes, or fees that aren’t as ...
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 ...
Agriculture
Ending War on Coffee Latest Example of Why Government Shouldn’t Play Dietician
A few months back we wrote about California’s “nags and nannies who relish forbidding pleasure, especially those of a gastronomic nature,” and their success in convincing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a preliminary ruling which requires stores that sell coffee to post cancer warning labels around their ...
Blog
What’s the Deal with Ranked Choice Voting?
June’s elections in California and Maine represented a dream come true for political nerds everywhere. It brought to light a strange voting system in San Francisco and some other liberal California cities called ranked-choice, or instant runoff, voting. Ranked-choice voting takes effect when no candidate receives a majority of votes ...
Blog
What We’re Watching – June 29
Kerry Jackson – A Plea to Work Together Kerry Jackson is watching this recent Ted Talk by Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute. In this stirring talk, Brooks pleads for liberals and conservatives to work together. He asks the rhetorical question – how can we solve problems with so ...
Blog
Pacific Research Institute Responds to Janus Ruling
Scholars at the Pacific Research Institute, the California-based, free-market think-tank, responded to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Janus v. AFSCME case on worker freedom. Kerry Jackson, Fellow with PRI’s Center for California Reform “Today’s landmark ruling restores a freedom that should have never been allowed to be ...
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 ...
Blog
We Can Fund Our Roads This Year And Scrap Controversial Gas Tax
A recent issue of The Bond Buyer warns that “thousands of road projects funded by a recently enacted California gas tax are in jeopardy if voters repeal it.” While most Californians want the decrepit streets and highways across the state repaired, they are not likely to be moved by the ...
Blog
After Wayfair Ruling, Will California and Other States Rush to Collect More Sales Taxes?
Last week, the Supreme Court issued a major decision in a case about online retailers collecting sales taxes, South Dakota v. Wayfair. As PRI’s Bartlett Cleland recently wrote in Fox and Hounds, “the case is centered around the notion that an entity must have a physical presence in a jurisdiction ...
Blog
What We’re Watching – June 22
Tim Anaya – When the Canadians – err British – Burned Down the White House This week, I was in Washington, DC visiting my brother. We took in all of the touristy things, including a nighttime bus tour around the White House and all the monuments. The recent war of ...
Soda Tax Vote Forces Lawmakers to Eat Carrot or Face Local Tax Spigot Shut Off
Usually around this time of year, you’ll see state lawmakers wielding a big stick. In search of headlines or political points, lawmakers will routinely target some politically incorrect industry with punitive legislation. Unless that industry agrees to eat a legislative carrot of new regulations, taxes, or fees that aren’t as ...
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 ...
Ending War on Coffee Latest Example of Why Government Shouldn’t Play Dietician
A few months back we wrote about California’s “nags and nannies who relish forbidding pleasure, especially those of a gastronomic nature,” and their success in convincing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a preliminary ruling which requires stores that sell coffee to post cancer warning labels around their ...
What’s the Deal with Ranked Choice Voting?
June’s elections in California and Maine represented a dream come true for political nerds everywhere. It brought to light a strange voting system in San Francisco and some other liberal California cities called ranked-choice, or instant runoff, voting. Ranked-choice voting takes effect when no candidate receives a majority of votes ...
What We’re Watching – June 29
Kerry Jackson – A Plea to Work Together Kerry Jackson is watching this recent Ted Talk by Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute. In this stirring talk, Brooks pleads for liberals and conservatives to work together. He asks the rhetorical question – how can we solve problems with so ...
Pacific Research Institute Responds to Janus Ruling
Scholars at the Pacific Research Institute, the California-based, free-market think-tank, responded to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Janus v. AFSCME case on worker freedom. Kerry Jackson, Fellow with PRI’s Center for California Reform “Today’s landmark ruling restores a freedom that should have never been allowed to be ...
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 ...
We Can Fund Our Roads This Year And Scrap Controversial Gas Tax
A recent issue of The Bond Buyer warns that “thousands of road projects funded by a recently enacted California gas tax are in jeopardy if voters repeal it.” While most Californians want the decrepit streets and highways across the state repaired, they are not likely to be moved by the ...
After Wayfair Ruling, Will California and Other States Rush to Collect More Sales Taxes?
Last week, the Supreme Court issued a major decision in a case about online retailers collecting sales taxes, South Dakota v. Wayfair. As PRI’s Bartlett Cleland recently wrote in Fox and Hounds, “the case is centered around the notion that an entity must have a physical presence in a jurisdiction ...
What We’re Watching – June 22
Tim Anaya – When the Canadians – err British – Burned Down the White House This week, I was in Washington, DC visiting my brother. We took in all of the touristy things, including a nighttime bus tour around the White House and all the monuments. The recent war of ...
