Commentary
Business & Economics
New leadership on taxes needed
A general economic malaise permeates everyday life in California, best illustrated by the state’s 12.4 percent unemployment rate, third-highest in the country. This melancholy has forced responses from the candidates for governor. Californians should give their ideas careful scrutiny. In his eight-page fiscal plan, Jerry Brown offers vague and general ...
Commentary
Florida’s lesson: School choice builds success
Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, and retired administrator Larry Aceves want to be California’s superintendent of public instruction. Voters should ask the candidates why Florida, though demographically similar to California, continues to trounce the Golden State in student achievement. Two years ago, significant numbers of Florida’s low-income and minority fourth-graders outscored ...
Business & Economics
Brown’s Tax-the-Rich Mantra Won’t Work
The “w” word used by a Jerry Brown strategist to describe Meg Whitman’s alleged sellout on her pension reform proposals to public safety unions that are endorsing her dominated much of the coverage of the Oct. 12 debate. But far more important to California’s future was Brown’s own sellout to ...
Business & Economics
Places where judges don’t allow justice to prevail
Part two of a three-part series. In 2009, the top 10 jury awards in the United States alone totaled $1.5 billion. Eight were doled out in states with the worst tort climates as measured by the U.S. Tort Liability Index. When judges and juries in the worst jurisdictions, referred to ...
Commentary
New Study Shows Arizona Tax Credits Serve Low- and Moderate-Income Families
Arlington, Va.—On November 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the next big school choice case. A new study released today, which examines the Arizona choice program at the center of the legal fight, finds that the primary beneficiaries of the choice program are overwhelmingly students from low- and moderate-income ...
Business & Economics
Broken California
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently warned that if voters approve a November initiative legalizing marijuana, the state will become a national “laughingstock.” The only thing more prevalent than non-Californians poking fun at the state’s enduring political and budget mess these days is Californians who offer counsel on how to save ...
Business & Economics
Lawyers gone wild are killing our economy
Part one of a three-part series. Jackpot Justice – Lawyers Gone Wild from Nicholas Tucker on Vimeo. It’s a dangerous world. At least, that’s what the warning labels on common consumer products would lead us to believe. The kitchen knife package cautions against juggling knives. The superhero costume warns that ...
Commentary
California’s Cap-and-Trade War
What happens when environmental fashion collides with a state’s desperate need for jobs and economic growth? That question will be put to the test when Californians vote November 2 on a ballot measure that would suspend the Golden State’s cap-and-trade law until its unemployment rate falls below 5.5%. Today the ...
Business & Economics
State overspends, and gets less for more
Last week the Democratic leader of the state Senate said the state should provide child care for people no longer on welfare, among $470 million worth of other social services. Consequently, Sen. Darrell Steinberg said, in January he will attempt to reverse Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s line-item budget vetoes eliminating those ...
Business & Economics
Is California now an idiocracy?
SACRAMENTO – While trying to get the assembled, clueless staff at a phone store to tell me how to turn off an annoying e-mail alarm on my new smart phone, I was finally greeted by a manager, who declared that the phone is supposed to work that way. “So when ...
New leadership on taxes needed
A general economic malaise permeates everyday life in California, best illustrated by the state’s 12.4 percent unemployment rate, third-highest in the country. This melancholy has forced responses from the candidates for governor. Californians should give their ideas careful scrutiny. In his eight-page fiscal plan, Jerry Brown offers vague and general ...
Florida’s lesson: School choice builds success
Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, and retired administrator Larry Aceves want to be California’s superintendent of public instruction. Voters should ask the candidates why Florida, though demographically similar to California, continues to trounce the Golden State in student achievement. Two years ago, significant numbers of Florida’s low-income and minority fourth-graders outscored ...
Brown’s Tax-the-Rich Mantra Won’t Work
The “w” word used by a Jerry Brown strategist to describe Meg Whitman’s alleged sellout on her pension reform proposals to public safety unions that are endorsing her dominated much of the coverage of the Oct. 12 debate. But far more important to California’s future was Brown’s own sellout to ...
Places where judges don’t allow justice to prevail
Part two of a three-part series. In 2009, the top 10 jury awards in the United States alone totaled $1.5 billion. Eight were doled out in states with the worst tort climates as measured by the U.S. Tort Liability Index. When judges and juries in the worst jurisdictions, referred to ...
New Study Shows Arizona Tax Credits Serve Low- and Moderate-Income Families
Arlington, Va.—On November 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the next big school choice case. A new study released today, which examines the Arizona choice program at the center of the legal fight, finds that the primary beneficiaries of the choice program are overwhelmingly students from low- and moderate-income ...
Broken California
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently warned that if voters approve a November initiative legalizing marijuana, the state will become a national “laughingstock.” The only thing more prevalent than non-Californians poking fun at the state’s enduring political and budget mess these days is Californians who offer counsel on how to save ...
Lawyers gone wild are killing our economy
Part one of a three-part series. Jackpot Justice – Lawyers Gone Wild from Nicholas Tucker on Vimeo. It’s a dangerous world. At least, that’s what the warning labels on common consumer products would lead us to believe. The kitchen knife package cautions against juggling knives. The superhero costume warns that ...
California’s Cap-and-Trade War
What happens when environmental fashion collides with a state’s desperate need for jobs and economic growth? That question will be put to the test when Californians vote November 2 on a ballot measure that would suspend the Golden State’s cap-and-trade law until its unemployment rate falls below 5.5%. Today the ...
State overspends, and gets less for more
Last week the Democratic leader of the state Senate said the state should provide child care for people no longer on welfare, among $470 million worth of other social services. Consequently, Sen. Darrell Steinberg said, in January he will attempt to reverse Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s line-item budget vetoes eliminating those ...
Is California now an idiocracy?
SACRAMENTO – While trying to get the assembled, clueless staff at a phone store to tell me how to turn off an annoying e-mail alarm on my new smart phone, I was finally greeted by a manager, who declared that the phone is supposed to work that way. “So when ...
