Blog
Blog
Emulating Europe’s High-Speed Rail Gets California Nowhere Fast
The political left has long wanted the United States to be more like Europe. Its appetite for Europeanization is clearly visible in California where the political class that runs the state has demanded a bullet train of its very own. At the groundbreaking ceremony in 2015 kicking off the high-speed ...
Blog
Free Markets 101: The Landscape of American Opportunity
One of the most common themes in American politics is the emphasis on preserving or restoring our role as a land of opportunity. Across the political spectrum, there is a general sense that the intergenerational promise of upward mobility is becoming harder and harder to keep. For those on the ...
Blog
Celebrating the Sound of Freedom
That sound you heard on the Fourth of July was not bands playing “God Bless America” or other patriotic songs. No, it was people complaining on social media about fireworks being set off in their neighborhoods. Where I live in Sacramento, you can buy fireworks for your family 4th of ...
Blog
What We’re Watching – July 6, 2018
Rowena Itchon – Keynes vs. Hayek, Rounds 1 and 2 For my summer reading list, I like to re-read a classic or two. So for my summer video recommendation, here are a couple of classics: Keynes vs. Hayek, Rounds 1 and 2. Fear the Boom and Bust Fight of the ...
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 ...
Emulating Europe’s High-Speed Rail Gets California Nowhere Fast
The political left has long wanted the United States to be more like Europe. Its appetite for Europeanization is clearly visible in California where the political class that runs the state has demanded a bullet train of its very own. At the groundbreaking ceremony in 2015 kicking off the high-speed ...
Free Markets 101: The Landscape of American Opportunity
One of the most common themes in American politics is the emphasis on preserving or restoring our role as a land of opportunity. Across the political spectrum, there is a general sense that the intergenerational promise of upward mobility is becoming harder and harder to keep. For those on the ...
Celebrating the Sound of Freedom
That sound you heard on the Fourth of July was not bands playing “God Bless America” or other patriotic songs. No, it was people complaining on social media about fireworks being set off in their neighborhoods. Where I live in Sacramento, you can buy fireworks for your family 4th of ...
What We’re Watching – July 6, 2018
Rowena Itchon – Keynes vs. Hayek, Rounds 1 and 2 For my summer reading list, I like to re-read a classic or two. So for my summer video recommendation, here are a couple of classics: Keynes vs. Hayek, Rounds 1 and 2. Fear the Boom and Bust Fight of the ...
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 ...
