Unions and Corporations Both Want to Build Stuff
There’s a rift in the American labor movement, and enterprising Republicans might be able to exploit it. Here’s Politico this week, documenting the disagreements between service-sector and labor unions as highlighted in a letter published recently by leading labor unions: “The labor federation and many of its member unions have embraced environmentalism as a pillar of […]
What the GOP Establishment Can Learn from Bernie Sanders
Plenty of conservative commentators have already remarked upon what the Establishment GOP can learn from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, but the jist of the lesson can be distilled from a recent Bloomberg piece– rethink unfettered free markets, open immigration, global free trade, financial deregulation, and supply-side tax policy, and start adopting pro-productivity, pro-working-class policies […]
Golden Blues: 2015 Saw Regressive Blue Regulations
California legislators love to regulate stuff, and 2015 was a particularly juicy year for them. A recent San Francisco Chronicle article demonstrates as much. The state legislature, over the course of the last year, passed “about three dozen employment laws” regulating various workplace issues. A litany of the most prominent: “…SB358, the widely publicized Fair Pay Act. […]
Democratic Dreams; Republican Opportunity
There are at least three reasons for California Democrats to be proud of themselves this week. First- guess what? Turns out California has a GREAT business climate, after all! All this doom and gloom about environmental regulations and business taxes is for naught. What’s Joel Kotkin even talking about? Second- in Paris, our leaders are […]
Schwarzenegger-Brown is not really a “Bipartisan” Alliance
Monday’s L.A. Times gushed over the “bipartisan” gubernatorial legitimacy Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown have given efforts to fight climate change in Paris this weekend. The two former Governors “sat for a joint interview to put a bipartisan spin on fighting climate change,” showing the world that green-minded Democrats and Republicans can avoid petty bickering […]
Golden Blues: EITC Preferable to Minimum Wage
Hello again California. As promised, here is the follow-up to the recent Golden Blues piece on climate legislation. Today, we discuss the blue elite’s counterproductive attempts to fight inequality. As has been reported over the last few months, blue thinkers, policy wonks, and activists across the state are building momentum to get cities to raise their minimum […]
Golden Blues: Brown and the Oligarchs Love Green Energy
Good morning, California, and welcome to this week’s edition of Golden Blues. On tap today is a green boondoggle; later this week we’ll cover a blue one. Governor Jerry Brown is in Paris working to encourage provincial leaders from other nations to sign a memorandum “promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.” […]
Student Protests at USC and Around the Nation
There’s been a flurry of news stories with a common theme- the liberal-minded student body of a university someplace on the East Coast or in the Midwest is inspired to activism by some grave, actual injustice (i.e., explicitly racist harassment by unknown perpetrators at the University of Missouri,) members of the student body organize to […]
Golden Blues: Prop F Down, SEIU Squabbling Over Minimum Wage
Several years ago, the great Walter Russell Mead published a series of essays at The American Interest magazine describing the long, violent death of what he calls the “Blue Model.” The Blue Model is that stagnant mix of Keynesian economics, heavy-handed regulatory policy, and a generous welfare state that largely defined American domestic policy from […]
GOP 2018 Field Wide Open for an Outsider
Article after article speculates on the looming 2018 gubernatorial race, listing prominent Californians who may seek the Governor’s Office once Jerry Brown moves on to better things. Gavin Newsom has announced. Antonio Villaraigosa has made his intentions clear. Eric Garcetti has nothing to lose. Alex Padilla, Tom Steyer, John Chiang, and Steve Westly also turn up in polls. […]