Despite Budget Action, Much Work Remains to Solve State’s Pension Crisis
Anyone worried about an earthquake plunging California into the sea should be more concerned about what is really sinking the state: the cost of public-employee pensions. In the just-enacted 2017-18 state budget, about $8 billion of the state government’s $183 billion spending package will go to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as CalPERS, and […]
Policymakers Ignore Long-Term Consequences of California Minimum Wage Hike
They were warned and they knew better but they did it nonetheless. It’s become the California Way. Continually legislate, never bother to contemplate. In 1992, economists David Card and Alan B. Krueger published a National Bureau of Economic Research paper that claimed, “Relative to stores in Pennsylvania, fast food restaurants in New Jersey,” where the […]
Would Single Payer Violate the Gann Limit?
The California Senate voted late on June 1 to create a single-payer health-care system that will cover every resident in the state with no money out of their pockets. But this “free” health care would be anything but. Its costs are going to be steep, painful, probably deadly – and might violate a key taxpayer […]
Lack of Transparency in Public Contract Negotiations Would Lead to Higher Taxpayer Costs
No state needs to reform the relationship that governments have with public-employee unions more than California. Yet lawmakers keep going in the wrong direction. Contract negotiations between government and the labor unions who represent the public employees should be transparent. Too often, both sides are working toward a common goal – a generous deal for […]
Free Market Would Do More to Protect California’s Environment Than State Regulation
California is home to six of the 10 cities with the worst air pollution in the country. This seems inconceivable, given that the state has the strictest environmental rules in the nation. Clearly, policymakers have been making the wrong choices. Of course, there’s little chance they’ll admit error. Their response is more likely to simply […]
Rent Control Would Put Housing Out of Reach for More Californians
The most unaffordable city in the world in which to rent a home is not New York or Tokyo or Hong Kong. The title belongs to San Francisco, where a single person who wants to live on their own needs to earn more than $85,000 a year to pay the rent and a family more […]
Misguided State Policies Lead To More Companies Leaving California
This spring marks the first anniversary of the announcement that Carl’s Jr., a California burger icon for more than six decades, was relocating its headquarters to Nashville. It’s yet another business that has quit California in what was once an almost quiet exodus of companies but now looks more like a stampede. The list of […]
To Grow California’s Economy, Legislature Must Act to Stop Junk Lawsuits
California’s business climate is more predictable than its weather. It’s always one storm after the other. Companies relocate to states where they are welcomed rather than vilified and preyed upon. Capital is moved to more jobs-friendly states. Productive workers just get out, or are left behind with few good opportunities to prosper in their field. […]
More Government Won’t Help Sacramento’s Homeless Get Back On Their Feet
Sacramento’s mayor thinks he’s hit on an answer to the city’s homeless problem. He wants to provide them with housing vouchers. Of course, he’s likely to find the result will be the exact opposite of the one he’s looking for. In downtown Sacramento alone, there are reported to be more than 60 regular homeless living […]
Government Policies Perpetuate Poverty in California
Anyone can see the road that they walk on Is paved in gold And it’s always summer They’ll never get cold They’ll never get hungry They’ll never get old and gray ~ Fastball, “The Way,” 1998 Before California was officially christened the Golden State by the Legislature in 1968, it was also known as the […]