Blog
Blog
Fast food restaurants are raising prices after minimum wage hike
Their Pleasure: Legislators Cook Up A Law That Burns Fast Food
The new prices, which won’t go up in other states, depend on where the restaurant is. A double-double meal combo at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf now costs $13.63 including taxes; not far away in Daly City, the same meal is $2 cheaper, says the New York Post. In Irvine, near ...
Blog
Spending Watch: More Debt Is More Taxes
As a recent Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll confirms, this approach is out of step with “most Californians (56%) [who] would prefer to pay lower taxes and have a state government that provides fewer services”. With respect to solving the current budget crisis, the poll found that “fewer ...
Blog
Will lawmakers hinder Prop. 47 reform?
Prop 47 – A Lethal Public Policy Cocktail
Not one of the ten bills pending in the state legislature even mentions dangerous drugs. The CDAA ballot initiative addresses the complexities of prosecuting serial and repeat thieves and refocuses on the root cause – increasing dangerous drug addiction and the systemic, pharmacological, and economically compulsive violence that contribute to ...
Blog
BOOK REVIEW: “Build, Baby, Build!” by Bryan Caplan
“Drill, baby, drill!” Those words were first popularized at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Republicans were widely mocked at the time for their sloganeering, but they largely carried the day. Domestic oil extraction came to 302.2 million metric tons in 2008. That was a 10-year low according ...
Blog
Read the latest on the Sacramento DA's homeless lawsuit
Sac DA’s homeless lawsuit falters, but effort wasn’t in vain
District Attorney Thien Ho tested how much his office directly can affect homeless policy by suing the city for not doing its job to deal with its festering homelessness crisis. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Jill H. Talley ruled on May 6 that Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the City Council ...
Blog
Why High School Graduates Turn Out to Be College Illiterates
Education Week recently pointed out that high school graduates’ “college readiness has reached historic lows, according to several metrics—including the lowest scores in 30 years on the ACT and declining scores on the SAT, the two primary standardized tests used for college admissions.” The ACT measures college readiness in English ...
Blog
Will lawmakers take action to stop human trafficking in California?
The “Safer Streets for All Act” That Isn’t.
In 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sex worker groups, and Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) joined forces to pass Senate Bill 357, which effectively decriminalized loitering for the purposes of prostitution. Citing statistics from Los Angeles that showed over 50 percent of suspected prostitutes are black, the ACLU ...
Blog
Is California leaving a large amount of tax revenue on the table?
Flavored Tobacco Prohibition Bans Tax Revenues Not Products
Examining state tax revenues and the volume of legal cigarette sales, it appears that the ban has caused cigarette use to decline. As Figure 1 illustrates, the decline in tax paid cigarette sales accelerated in 2023 following the implementation of the ban. Lost sales translate into lost tax revenues for ...
Blog
Failed wildfire policy hikes cities’ housing, energy costs
Failed wildfire policy hikes cities’ housing, energy costs By Kenneth Schrupp | June 7, 2024 Two years of rain have finally ended California’s drought, leaving reservoirs full and hills in bloom. However, the prospect of new growth feeding future wildfires looms over a state where the costs of damage and ...
Blog
Large majority of U.S. minorities live in the suburbs
Figure 1 below shows the share of the major minorities living in either the urban core or the suburbs of the 51 metropolitan areas included in the City Sector Model. It is based on 2015-2019 zip code data and the urban form as defined in Figure 2 (which is independent of ...
Fast food restaurants are raising prices after minimum wage hike
Their Pleasure: Legislators Cook Up A Law That Burns Fast Food
The new prices, which won’t go up in other states, depend on where the restaurant is. A double-double meal combo at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf now costs $13.63 including taxes; not far away in Daly City, the same meal is $2 cheaper, says the New York Post. In Irvine, near ...
Spending Watch: More Debt Is More Taxes
As a recent Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll confirms, this approach is out of step with “most Californians (56%) [who] would prefer to pay lower taxes and have a state government that provides fewer services”. With respect to solving the current budget crisis, the poll found that “fewer ...
Will lawmakers hinder Prop. 47 reform?
Prop 47 – A Lethal Public Policy Cocktail
Not one of the ten bills pending in the state legislature even mentions dangerous drugs. The CDAA ballot initiative addresses the complexities of prosecuting serial and repeat thieves and refocuses on the root cause – increasing dangerous drug addiction and the systemic, pharmacological, and economically compulsive violence that contribute to ...
BOOK REVIEW: “Build, Baby, Build!” by Bryan Caplan
“Drill, baby, drill!” Those words were first popularized at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Republicans were widely mocked at the time for their sloganeering, but they largely carried the day. Domestic oil extraction came to 302.2 million metric tons in 2008. That was a 10-year low according ...
Read the latest on the Sacramento DA's homeless lawsuit
Sac DA’s homeless lawsuit falters, but effort wasn’t in vain
District Attorney Thien Ho tested how much his office directly can affect homeless policy by suing the city for not doing its job to deal with its festering homelessness crisis. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Jill H. Talley ruled on May 6 that Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the City Council ...
Why High School Graduates Turn Out to Be College Illiterates
Education Week recently pointed out that high school graduates’ “college readiness has reached historic lows, according to several metrics—including the lowest scores in 30 years on the ACT and declining scores on the SAT, the two primary standardized tests used for college admissions.” The ACT measures college readiness in English ...
Will lawmakers take action to stop human trafficking in California?
The “Safer Streets for All Act” That Isn’t.
In 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sex worker groups, and Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) joined forces to pass Senate Bill 357, which effectively decriminalized loitering for the purposes of prostitution. Citing statistics from Los Angeles that showed over 50 percent of suspected prostitutes are black, the ACLU ...
Is California leaving a large amount of tax revenue on the table?
Flavored Tobacco Prohibition Bans Tax Revenues Not Products
Examining state tax revenues and the volume of legal cigarette sales, it appears that the ban has caused cigarette use to decline. As Figure 1 illustrates, the decline in tax paid cigarette sales accelerated in 2023 following the implementation of the ban. Lost sales translate into lost tax revenues for ...
Failed wildfire policy hikes cities’ housing, energy costs
Failed wildfire policy hikes cities’ housing, energy costs By Kenneth Schrupp | June 7, 2024 Two years of rain have finally ended California’s drought, leaving reservoirs full and hills in bloom. However, the prospect of new growth feeding future wildfires looms over a state where the costs of damage and ...
Large majority of U.S. minorities live in the suburbs
Figure 1 below shows the share of the major minorities living in either the urban core or the suburbs of the 51 metropolitan areas included in the City Sector Model. It is based on 2015-2019 zip code data and the urban form as defined in Figure 2 (which is independent of ...
