Infrastructure
Commentary
Still time to repeal Obamacare
On July 2, the Obama administration announced that it would delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s “employer mandate” until 2015. This much-bemoaned provision will require businesses with at least 50 employees who work 30 hours or more a week to provide health insurance to all full-timers. Employers that fail ...
California
Lax CPUC oversight lets PG&E gouge ratepayer
As the price of natural gas has fallen to a decade low, utility ratepayers wouldnt know it. Utility costs continue to explode. Given the low cost of natural gas, Pacific Gas & Electrics latest request to increase utility rates by more than 15 percent by 2016 is causing many to ...
Commentary
Forget About Providers, What Do Doctors Think of Obamacare?
Healthcare providers have long been among Obamacares most enthusiastic supporters. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Hospital Association have all spoken out in favor of President Obamas signature piece of legislation. But their statements of support are proving to be little more than lip ...
Business & Economics
Obama Defends Bailouts, Handouts and Cop-Outs
State of the Union addresses provide insight into the vision of America embraced by the president, and in that regard Tuesday’s address by President Barack Obama didn’t disappoint. He envisions a country where the federal government protects and creates union jobs and where the public sector is leading the charge ...
California
Another Way California Wastes Taxpayer Dollars
California legislators never have enough time, and always lack the vision, to deal appropriately with the state’s pressing budget and infrastructure problems. But they are great at self-aggrandizement and at catering to the special-interest groups that assure their re-election. One would think, for instance, the Assembly Transportation Committee would be ...
California
Don’t trust the locals yet
California’s redevelopment agencies were corrupt and had to go. But it’s hardly obvious that re-empowering local officials with “new and improved” economic development authority is a wise idea. Don’t misunderstand. It wasn’t that city officials who served on state redevelopment agency boards received bribes and kickbacks, or engaged in what ...
California
California schools failing science
The late Steve Jobs thought highly of the California public schools he attended in the 1960s and early 1970s, according to the new biography of him by Walter Isaacson. The schools must have done something right to stir the mind of our age’s genius inventor and entrepreneur. But the biography ...
Business & Economics
Union ‘Gut and Amend’ Bills Slice Open CA
Its gut and amend season in the California Legislature. More like shuck and jive and obfuscate. Last week, I received information that another bill had been gutted of its original intent, and new language added to greatly benefit labor unions. By the end of the day, two additional bills were ...
California
State Legislature fights evil unfitted sheets
The Legislative Goofball of The Session Award goes to Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, for Senate Bill 432, which mandates that hotels use fitted sheets rather than unfitted sheets on mattresses. Other legislators have promoted more damaging and far-reaching bills, but de León’s ban on unfitted sheets and mandates ...
Business & Economics
It’s about free markets, not Texas
As California’s budget battle continues, Republicans and Democrats have engaged in a rhetorical battle regarding the relative merits and demerits of our lovely state and one of the nation’s other growing megastates —- Texas. This debate started after a legislative delegation made up mostly of Republicans went eastward in April ...
Still time to repeal Obamacare
On July 2, the Obama administration announced that it would delay implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s “employer mandate” until 2015. This much-bemoaned provision will require businesses with at least 50 employees who work 30 hours or more a week to provide health insurance to all full-timers. Employers that fail ...
Lax CPUC oversight lets PG&E gouge ratepayer
As the price of natural gas has fallen to a decade low, utility ratepayers wouldnt know it. Utility costs continue to explode. Given the low cost of natural gas, Pacific Gas & Electrics latest request to increase utility rates by more than 15 percent by 2016 is causing many to ...
Forget About Providers, What Do Doctors Think of Obamacare?
Healthcare providers have long been among Obamacares most enthusiastic supporters. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Hospital Association have all spoken out in favor of President Obamas signature piece of legislation. But their statements of support are proving to be little more than lip ...
Obama Defends Bailouts, Handouts and Cop-Outs
State of the Union addresses provide insight into the vision of America embraced by the president, and in that regard Tuesday’s address by President Barack Obama didn’t disappoint. He envisions a country where the federal government protects and creates union jobs and where the public sector is leading the charge ...
Another Way California Wastes Taxpayer Dollars
California legislators never have enough time, and always lack the vision, to deal appropriately with the state’s pressing budget and infrastructure problems. But they are great at self-aggrandizement and at catering to the special-interest groups that assure their re-election. One would think, for instance, the Assembly Transportation Committee would be ...
Don’t trust the locals yet
California’s redevelopment agencies were corrupt and had to go. But it’s hardly obvious that re-empowering local officials with “new and improved” economic development authority is a wise idea. Don’t misunderstand. It wasn’t that city officials who served on state redevelopment agency boards received bribes and kickbacks, or engaged in what ...
California schools failing science
The late Steve Jobs thought highly of the California public schools he attended in the 1960s and early 1970s, according to the new biography of him by Walter Isaacson. The schools must have done something right to stir the mind of our age’s genius inventor and entrepreneur. But the biography ...
Union ‘Gut and Amend’ Bills Slice Open CA
Its gut and amend season in the California Legislature. More like shuck and jive and obfuscate. Last week, I received information that another bill had been gutted of its original intent, and new language added to greatly benefit labor unions. By the end of the day, two additional bills were ...
State Legislature fights evil unfitted sheets
The Legislative Goofball of The Session Award goes to Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, for Senate Bill 432, which mandates that hotels use fitted sheets rather than unfitted sheets on mattresses. Other legislators have promoted more damaging and far-reaching bills, but de León’s ban on unfitted sheets and mandates ...
It’s about free markets, not Texas
As California’s budget battle continues, Republicans and Democrats have engaged in a rhetorical battle regarding the relative merits and demerits of our lovely state and one of the nation’s other growing megastates —- Texas. This debate started after a legislative delegation made up mostly of Republicans went eastward in April ...
