California was once defined by its natural beauty and milestones of human achievement. Today it’s known more for intractable problems, such as the public employee pension crisis. State and local governments have racked up nearly $1 trillion in pension debt. But because government employers have contributed only about 70 percent of what they are required to feed […]

Hundreds of cities and counties across the state are going to have to make it easier to build new homes, says one state agency, if the housing supply is to keep up with demand. But it will never happen if politics continue to interfere. The Department of Housing and Community Development’s statewide determination summary found […]

Quick, name the place where drivers suffer through maybe the worst traffic on Earth while policymakers are committed to making it altogether intolerable. Yes, of course it’s California. Earlier this year, Inrix, a transportation analytics firm, ranked Los Angeles as the city with the worst traffic in the world, as measured by annual “peak hours […]

Skimming is not a union practice that went out when the closing credits for “On The Waterfront” first rolled in 1954. It’s still alive today. And it’s hurting some of California’s most vulnerable residents, while at the same time stuffing the treasury of politically powerful unions and financially exploiting those who care for the sick, […]

Jerry Brown wants to burnish his legacy with a high-speed rail line that would whip passengers up and down the state. But he’s more likely to be remembered as the governor who couldn’t make his fabulously over-cost train run on time. Brown’s dream train, according to the self-described “father” of the project, is no longer […]

Lawmakers haven’t yet voted on legislation they say addresses the state’s housing crisis, but it’s just as well. The proposals they were trying to pass off as solutions aren’t solutions at all. One bill that’s key to the rest of the legislative package would add to real estate costs, while other bills would stack up […]

Thanks to a stormy winter, California’s long drought is over, says state government. But California’s man-made drought will continue as long as Sacramento misallocates our water supply. Maybe it’s time to appeal to a higher but distant authority. When Gov. Jerry Brown declared in April that the six-year “drought emergency is over,” he didn’t seem […]

The mood was reportedly celebratory on the evening of July 17 after legislators approved a decade-long extension of the state’s carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program. But that’s not to say everyone was happy, or should be. Assembly Bill 398 will continue the current cap-and-trade system through 2030. It places a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and […]