An Open Senate Race and New Rules
The 2016 US Senate race will be the first serious statewide contest under the new rules of the open primary-top two runoff. If politicians have not figured out how much it has changed California politics, they will soon. In a one-party state like California, the dominant pols generally don’t like elections, and the retirement of […]
Reason Foundation Argues: 10 Reasons to Support Mileage-based User Fees
The debate over gas taxes or mileage-based user fees to fund road construction and maintenance is heating up. Proponents of gas tax increases argue now is the time to proceed because lower gasoline prices would lessen the blow on consumers and blunt political opposition. In California, a commission to study road usage charges and establish […]
Rebuilding California’s Middle Class: One Community College at a Time
(This posting is a slightly revised version of an essay that appeared the past few days in Zocalo Public Square and in Time Magazine.) In the past few weeks, President Obama’s free community college tuition proposal has received a lot of media attention as a strategy for rebuilding the middle class. Even if the president’s […]
Were California and Poland Separated at Birth?
California, I’d like to introduce you to the sister you never knew you had. Her name is Poland. No joke. I see by the look on your face, California, that you are a bit shocked at this news. I realize that, when you think about your place in the world, you compare yourself to other […]
CA Jobs Growth Continues — With Caution Signal
California continues to enjoy fairly strong jobs growth — but new data released today (not yet online) by the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University suggest caution may be warranted moving forward. The report’s headline: “California unemployment indicator declines.” The California Employment Indicator declined to 121.6 in the first quarter of 2015 […]