Media reports that some California businesses have gone underground during the pandemic lockdown should surprise no one. When politicians ban activities, both those accepted by society and those considered less honorable, they drive them into black m...
26 January, 2021It was 38 years ago this weekend when during Super Bowl XVIII, Apple debuted one of the most powerful and provocative ads of all time. “1984” opens with an army of clone-like humans marching into a theater to watch on a giant screen a menacing......
21 January, 2021On the second business day after the state’s higher minimum wage took effect, employers in Los Angeles County had another weight dropped on them. The County Board of Supervisors approved a $5 an hour increase in “front-line” workers’ wages. It applie...
20 January, 2021By Maryalene LaPonsie, Contributor DURING THE 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, candidate Andrew Yang proposed sending $1,000 each month to all U.S. citizens age 18 and older. Dubbed a Freedom Dividend, his idea garnered him devoted supporte...
15 January, 2021Offering a temporary pay increase to grocery workers, often referred to as “hero pay”, makes a lot of sense when grocers voluntarily provide this additional compensation to their employees. Grocery workers are taking on additional health risks, suffe...
15 January, 2021Last month, Californians may very well have begun the process of saving their state, reversing a move by the state legislature. They voted by a large margin via Proposition 22 to preserve the ability of people to pursue flexible working arrangements ...
14 January, 2021Michael Thom, professor at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy, discusses his new book Taxing Sin. Prof. Thom reviews the history of sin taxes, which goes back for hundreds of years, and the traditional sin taxes, such as alcohol and tobacco tax...
11 January, 2021Way back in August, in what seems like an entirely different historical era, when California was open relative to the restrictions we’re under today, 44% of small business owners said they were at risk of permanent closure in the next six months, unl...
06 January, 2021It’s not hard to argue that California has the country’s harshest pandemic restrictions, though New York and Michigan are close enough to call it a tie. This would be news to anyone visiting from elsewhere, though. Aside from a few exceptions, things...
05 January, 2021Listen to PRI’s recent webinar featuring an all-star panel of experts representing legal, regulatory, and policy industries discussing state and federal changes to data privacy and cybersecurity during 2020 and what the future holds for tech, digital...
04 January, 2021
New federal COVID stimulus package could help in short term; longer-term impact less clear By Sarah Downey As final agreements on the new COVID-19 stimulus package were negotiated last week, crucial help for businesses and families was approved along...
04 January, 2021The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is considering a rule (i.e., Fair Access to Bank Services, Capital, and Credit), which would ensure that banks provide equal access to financial services, without discrimination. Such clarification ...
04 January, 2021In mid-December, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled their intent to wade into the student athlete compensation debate. The Supreme Court combined two cases, National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston and American Athletic Conference v. Alston, a...
30 December, 2020Uber customers might have noticed a new fee that’s appearing on their charges. Now, who do we have to thank for that? Oh, yes, the lawmakers who tried to destroy the gig economy and its millions of jobs. Uber added a “California Driver Benefits Fee”....
29 December, 2020The ill-winds of populism are again blowing across the American political landscape. This thin veneer of ideology only seeks to divide people, diving a wedge between “the people,” presented as the forces of good, against “the elite,” portrayed as evi...
23 December, 2020Dr. Wayne Winegarden, PRI senior fellow in business and economics, today submitted comments to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency responding to their proposed rule on “Fair Access to Bank Services, Capital and Credit.” In the l...
22 December, 2020
A Sign the ESG Movement Is Too Big to Ignore: There’s Backlash In the waning days of the Trump administration, several agencies are pushing back on the notion that corporations should prioritize anything other than profits. By Peter Coy, December 22...
22 December, 2020A Sign the ESG Movement Is Too Big to Ignore: There’s Backlash By Peter Coy The legal principle that corporate boards must focus exclusively on maximizing value for shareholders wasn’t always taken for granted. It was enshrined in a 1919 court decisi...
22 December, 2020By Henry Miller, M.S., M.D. and Andrew Fillat NASDAQ recently proposed new diversity requirements for the corporate boards of companies listed on the exchange. “Successful companies must cultivate diversity to fuel innovation and to thrive in today’s...
22 December, 2020One of the more surprising results from November’s election was the surprise defeat of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in his bid for re-election to a Republican upstart Kevin Lincoln, a pastor and former George W. Bush administration official who is bo...
16 December, 2020
On this webinar, PRI welcomes back an all-star panel of experts representing legal, regulatory, and policy industries to discuss state and federal changes to data privacy and cybersecurity during 2020 and what the future holds for tech, digital priva...
15 December, 2020Dr. Leslie Lenkowsky, an expert on philanthropy and public affairs, offers his insights into American civil society’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and what increased restrictions on personal freedom mean for our democracy. Dr. Lenkowsky is a pr...
14 December, 2020Several possibilities have been offered for how the Biden administration will shift U.S. trade policy including scrapping the Trump trade negotiations with China through executive order and working with Asian allies to pressure China. Much of the Tru...
14 December, 2020Coronavirus relief funds are back on the negotiation table, but the three sides have a huge chasm to close. Speaker Nancy Pelosi originally proposed a $3.4 trillion package, then $2.2 trillion, and has now settled on $900 billion. Treasury Secretary...
09 December, 2020It is with much sadness that I learned of the recent passing of one of my favorite and most respected economists, Professor Walter Williams. Walter was a prolific writer, author, educator, and defender of freedom. He died on December 3rd at 84, hav...
08 December, 2020
Steve Moore, a member of President Trump’s economic task force, discusses the domestic policy implications from the 2020 election with moderator PRI senior fellow Steve Hayward. Steve Moore offer his insights into what lies ahead for our nation amid ...
07 December, 2020Recent Census Bureau data tell a story that surprises no one who keeps up with current events in California: The state is losing residents like few others. According to economist Mark J. Perry, only four other states – New York, Illinois, New Jersey,...
30 November, 2020Majority of Voters Think Coronavirus Stimulus Package Should Be Top Priority During Biden’s First 100 Days By Rachel Bucchino Amajority of registered voters think President-elect Joe Biden should focus on issues relating to tackling the coronavirus p...
19 November, 2020The Department of Labor finalized a rule last month that, as the Wall Street Journal editorial page noted, should not be controversial. The rule states that private pensions cannot let ancillary issues distract them from their primary mission of secu...
18 November, 2020Ronald Reagan once described the government’s view of the economy like this: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” From his last point, even the Gipper couldn’t imagine that government would tax...
17 November, 2020San Francisco voters have told CEOs and their businesses to take a long walk off a short pier into the bay. Not in those exact words but in their own way, by overwhelmingly approving Proposition L. Under the Overpaid Executive Tax, passed by a 65-35....
13 November, 2020
As of this writing, we don’t know who has won the 2020 presidential election. Whoever wins, America’s next chief executive has many important policy decisions to make in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of some of the big issues that the presiden...
04 November, 2020Free marketers often assume that between the two political parties, Republicans are better for the stock market. It makes sense. Republicans believe that economic growth can be achieved by reducing regulation and costs for businesses and relying on ...
03 November, 2020During the first presidential debate in September, both candidates answered where they think the economy is headed. Trump believes in a V-shaped recovery, basically a quick rebound, while Biden prefers a K-shaped recovery, with the rich recovering wh...
27 October, 2020Next COVID-19 relief bill remains stalled in Washington; ‘Adverse impacts on the economy and individuals will be longer-lasting than they could have been’ By Sarah Downey With the outcome for a new COVID-19 financial stimulus package still in flux, c...
26 October, 2020Last week, I wrote about a proposition on the California ballot that would give 17-year-olds the right to vote in some California elections. California’s push for the youth vote got me thinking about how recent college graduates and others entering t...
14 October, 2020Pick nearly any state in the union and likely it has a large swath of rural area and population. Even California, which is rarely thought of as a “rural state,” is still physically more than half rural, with about four million residents living in tho...
13 October, 2020At the end of last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill establishing quotas for minorities on the boards of every publicly traded company in the state. That’s on top of a law enacted in 2018 that implemented quotas for women on corporate...
12 October, 2020State Board of Equalization Member Ted Gaines joins us to discuss one of the most controversial issues on the November ballot, Proposition 15, which would create a new split roll property tax system for commercial property. He shares his thoughts on...
02 October, 2020Most of the California business community is at the mercy of California’s progressive state legislature. It is easy to forget, especially with Silicon Valley pumping out inflated IPOs, that small businesses are the backbone of the economy. The U.S. S...
23 September, 2020Few topics are hotter these days than mail-in ballots and the role of the U.S. Postal Service. John Barger, a member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors appointed by President Trump, joins us to discuss the Postal Service’s plans to move w...
22 September, 2020Last month, the Trump Administration announced a “historic deal” to normalize relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Did the Trump administration solve Middle East conflict? No. While the merits of the deal will be debated in think ta...
16 September, 2020Right by the Bay has been following Sacramento’s tax raising schemes here, here, and here. But the state’s tax marauding politicians aren’t the only ones we should be worried about. Presidential candidate Joe Biden also wants Washington’s share of ...
02 September, 2020There are no state taxes on wealth in the U.S., but California is a good bet to be the first. The idea carries some political popularity, and its promises sound sweet, but what would be the reality if the legislation, Assembly Bill 2088, becomes law?...
26 August, 2020
Just prior to the pandemic, many states were finally recovering from the fiscal crises created by the 2007-09 recession. But, as with so many things, the pandemic has derailed these gains. If history is a guide, no matter how long the current recessi...
25 August, 2020President Trump’s signature was barely dry when cash-strapped governors nationwide cried foul over his executive order to provide $400 of additional unemployment benefits a week for the country’s jobless, after negotiations on a new coronavirus stimu...
25 August, 2020
Here’s Why Democrats Have An Edge Over Republicans in Stimulus Negotiations By: Jenni Fink, Newsweek The White House and Democratic Party leadership both cast blame for the stalemate over a stimulus package on the opposing side, but, in the bat...
20 August, 2020This week’s podcast is a special presentation of PRI’s recent Young Leaders’ Circle webinar, which brought together distillery owners, craft brewers, and licensing experts to examine the impact that COVID-19 has had on the production of our favorite ...
17 August, 2020When the 2020-21 state budget was enacted a few months back, I made the case that the majority party’s spending plan essentially sets the stage for an upcoming battle over tax increases. Back in 2011, former Gov. Jerry Brown pushed a budget plan that...
17 August, 2020Listen to PRI Business and Economics Fellow Damon Dunn on the Bottom Line with host Roger Marsh discuss details from his new book Punting Poverty, the danger of universal basic income, and his upbringing from rural Fort Worth, Texas, to Stanford, the...
13 August, 2020Title: Are second $1,200 stimulus checks coming? Here’s what we know By: Lorie Konish, CNBC Capitol Hill has come to a standstill following heated discussions last week on what to include in the next coronavirus stimulus package. One thing they did s...
12 August, 2020The Hon. Dan Kolkey – former legal advisor to Gov. Wilson, former appeals court justice, and PRI board member – joins us to discuss how this year’s key public policy issues, such as the state’s response to COVID-19, the housing crisis, and efforts to...
10 August, 2020Now that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System has decided to become a lender, it follows that the taxpayers who finance the pension fund have the right to know what types of loans will be made and to whom. The process, though, will unli...
10 August, 2020Congress and the Administration continue to debate the next stimulus bill. It will be much more effective, however, if we heed the lessons from the trillions of dollars that have already been spent battling the current recession. Some of the programs...
06 August, 2020PRI’s Business and Economic Fellow Damon Dunn joined Carol Roth on the Roth Effect Podcast to discuss his new book, Punting Poverty, and universal basic income, poverty, and capitalism. Dunn is a former Stanford and NFL football player turned s...
05 August, 2020This week in Washington, Democrats and Republicans are squabbling over the next economic stimulus package. Republicans have proposed a roughly $1 trillion plan, while Speaker Pelosi is pushing a $3 trillion plan. The partisan haggling and negotiati...
28 July, 2020Listen to PRI Fellow in Business and Economics Damon Dunn discuss the growing push for universal basic income and his new book Punting Poverty on “Alabama’s Morning News with JT”. ShareTweetPinShare...
27 July, 2020The COVID-19 recession has fueled volatility in the financial markets. Investment portfolios saw sharp drops in March and April but have rebounded recently as the economy opened up in some areas. This volatility has negatively impacted public pensio...
27 July, 2020The federal government’s emergency unemployment benefits are set to expire this week. Set at $600 a week by the CARES Act — the economic rescue package Congress passed back in March — the emergency benefits were intended to suppleme...
25 July, 2020Taxing billionaires would be a great way to fund the fight against coronavirus like AOC says — but only if the US government were drastically different By: Taylor Nicole Rogers, Business Insider The United States needs to find a way to cover the spir...
20 July, 2020Last week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden unveiled his economic platform in Pennsylvania, calling for an end to the “era of shareholder capitalism.” It seems that Jack Lew, former treasury secretary and a member of the Biden brain trust, n...
15 July, 2020By Rod Richardson and Wayne Winegarden As the nation grapples with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Senate may soon consider another federal stimulus package. Some politicians favor trillions in additional federal spending and lending, but...
14 July, 2020
Watch PRI Fellow in Business and Economics Damon Dunn respond to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey coming out in support of universal basic income with host Paul Greaney on NTD TV. ShareTweetPinShare...
14 July, 2020Recently, I attended a webinar hosted by the Legatum Institute, a UK-based think tank, where they discussed the results of their latest “Prosperity Index”. According to the Index’s executive summary, Legatum hopes that “nations around the world (will...
14 July, 2020This podcast is a special rebroadcast of a recent webinar featuring Damon Dunn, PRI fellow in business and economics, discussing his new book Punting Poverty: Breaking the Chains of Welfare. The former collegiate and pro football player turned entr...
13 July, 2020These are incredibly tough times for Texas and all Americans. On top of the economic pain from months of shelter-in-place orders, the violence and unrest we’ve seen arising from the death of George Floyd has brought economic inequality to the top of ...
10 July, 2020Policy experts: California needs to reform its tax system By Krystina Skurk California’s reliance on a notoriously fickle tax system has exacerbated the state’s budget problems in light of Covid-19, an economics professor said. The state of Californi...
09 July, 2020Labor Groups, San Francisco Push Bogus Taxpayer-Funded Survey to Support Anti-Gig Law By Collin Anderson A liberal advocacy group’s own researchers raised red flags about a taxpayer-funded study used to justify a union campaign against the Cali...
09 July, 2020As Americans struggle to recover from a deep recession fueled by the COVID-19 crisis, and respond in horror to the violence in many communities following the death of George Floyd, economic inequality and lack of opportunity have risen to the top of ...
09 July, 2020As if small businesses weren’t hurting enough, California’s senate voted last week to pass Gov. Newsom’s proposal to mandate job-protected family leave for businesses with as few as five workers. If SB 1383 becomes law, very small business would be ...
09 July, 2020Private equity firms are an important source of financing for both new businesses and existing firms. States with more private equity investment experience more business start-ups, more innovation, and generally have a more efficient business sector....
08 July, 2020PRI fellow in Business and Economics Damon Dunn discusses his new book Punting Poverty with host Joe Thomas on WCHV Radio in Charlottesville, VA. ShareTweetPinShare...
07 July, 2020Listen to PRI fellow in Business and Economics Damon Dunn discuss his new book Punting Poverty with host Larry Marino on “Politics, Issues, and Candidates” on AM 870 The Answer, KRLA Radio in Los Angeles. The interview begins at the 37:4...
07 July, 2020Political partisanship can be found in every part of society. What you say, or even what you do not say, is ripe for political criticism these days. It is no surprise then that social media, where a majority of the world devotes multiple hours each.....
07 July, 2020PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss the latest study in the “Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity” series, which makes the case that future medical innovation will be hindered unless state and federal...
06 July, 2020Listen to PRI’s Damon Dunn discuss his new book Punting Poverty on the Andy Caldwell Show on KUHL AM 1440 in Santa Maria, AM 1290 in Santa Barbara, and K-News 98.5 in San Luis Obispo. The interview begins at the 22:00 minute mark. The Andy Cald...
29 June, 2020California’s mask order tests the limits of Newsom’s executive power By: Phil Willon Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order June 18 requiring all Californians to wear face masks came as welcome news to those in the state concerned by the recent surge in COVID-19 ...
29 June, 2020As Americans have benefited from tele-health and other innovations thanks to COVID-19 regulatory relief, future medical advances will be stymied unless policymakers remove road blocks that make it difficult for entrepreneurs to develop new technology...
25 June, 2020Elon Musk is not alone in his frustration with the way California treats businesses. But he makes the news, and the announcement that SpaceX is abandoning plans to build rockets in Los Angeles and will instead make them in Texas and Florida is anothe...
23 June, 2020
In the new book Punting Poverty, released today by the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, former collegiate and pro football player turned entrepreneur Damon Dunn pushes back against the universal basic income movement to give Americans between ...
18 June, 2020This podcast features Erik Jaffe, a partner at Schaerr-Jaffe and a PRI fellow in Legal Studies. A constitutional attorney, Erik has been involved in over 100 Supreme Court matters. We discuss some of the high court’s decisions involving COVID-19, a...
15 June, 2020According to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, the next coronavirus relief package could spell disaster for our economy. In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee, the nonpartisan CBO warned that extending unemployment benefits w...
15 June, 2020Across the state, main streets have gone from being closed to being boarded. For California entrepreneurs, doing business in the state has hit a new low. It’s too early to get insurance data on what the vandalism, arson, and looting has cost business...
10 June, 2020The University of California Board of Regents just announced that “the endowment, the pension and all of our working capital pools are fossil-free at the University of California”. The Regents justify the divestment based on their belief that “contin...
09 June, 2020California’s Assembly Bill 5 has not been broken, but given a couple of recent developments, it might soon be showing some cracks. On May 20, Assembly Bill 1850, which would exempt some professions from AB5, a law that virtually outlaws independent c...
02 June, 2020Former Connecticut State Treasurer and founder and president of the Institute for Pension Fund Integrity Christopher Bancroft Burnham recently cited Dr. Wayne Winegarden’s study showing how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds unde...
28 May, 2020Nearly 39 million Americans have filed for unemployment, as of May 21, since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, pushing unemployment closer to levels not seen since the Great Depression. So far, Congress has allocated over $239 billion in stimul...
26 May, 2020PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss his latest study “Legislating Energy Prosperity,” which makes the case that if lawmakers acted to alleviate the unnecessary costs from state energy mandates, Califor...
26 May, 2020Year to date, the Dow Index of the U.S.’s 30 largest companies is down 14 percent; the S&P 500, which tracks 500 large-cap companies, is down 8 percent; and the NASDAQ, an electronic system that trades many of the world’s fastest growing companie...
21 May, 2020Policies intended to force Americans into electric vehicles, and taxpayer-financed subsidies that have propped up the EV industry aren’t consistent with those who believe government has limits. But this doesn’t mean that a company such as EV maker Te...
19 May, 2020Even as House members consider themselves non-essential workers (they’ve decided to vote from home), it hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from coming up with bad ideas for the next stimulus package, including relief for states and municipalities with pre...
14 May, 2020Public affairs professional and noted wine blogger David White of Terroirist.com joins us to discuss how the wine industry is faring during the global coronavirus crisis. He also shares his advice on organizing a virtual Happy Hour and gives recomme...
11 May, 2020There’s been a growing debate in California and nationally about extending workers’ compensation benefits for workers who are impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Some states are moving to make front line workers battling COVID-19 to be eligible for...
11 May, 2020California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has officially filed suit against Uber and Lyft for violating Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5). The action is a clear signal that the state’s policy leaders are determined to maximize the economic damage from this ill...
06 May, 2020Roughly 30 million people have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the nation’s economy. Economists estimate that the unemployment rate now ranges from 15 to 20 percent – numbers not seen since the Great Depression...
05 May, 2020Listen to a special presentation of PRI’s webinar featuring a panel of business experts and entrepreneurs analyzing how California can recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic. The panel looks at the current economic outlook resulting fro...
04 May, 2020“Healthy people have rights too,” complained my 89-year old mother, who’s miffed because we’ve refused to take her to her favorite grocery store. Mom has joined the tens of thousands of people across America who believe that enough is enough. From C...
29 April, 2020Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic could be the crisis that his party has been looking for to permanently establish a progressive “nation-state.” “There is opportunity for reimagining a progressive era as it...
27 April, 2020
Watch Pacific Research Institute’s inaugural panel webinar featuring a panel of business experts and entrepreneurs analyzing how California can recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic. The panel looks at the current economic outlook result...
22 April, 2020PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden joins us to evaluate the response by state and federal governments to boost America’s economy amidst the coronavirus pandemic. We discuss the “phase 3” $2 trillion stimulus package ena...
20 April, 2020The United States and China are engaged in a no-holds barred attempt to salvage their economies during the coronavirus pandemic. We’re all familiar with the actions taken in the recent weeks by the United States. The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury...
13 April, 2020Voters will likely have a chance in November to decide if Proposition 13 will remain as it has since its passage in 1978, or if it will turn it into a chimera that treats homes and businesses differently, bleeding the latter for tens of billions......
08 April, 2020Public banks, it seems, are the next wrongheaded progressive movement in state overrun with them. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted last month “to reach out to nearby jurisdictions proposing a viability study, the first step in the cre...
06 April, 2020This podcast is a recorded lecture from PRI’s second annual policy conference in Sacramento. The speaker is Judge Daniel Kolkey, a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He served as an Associate Justice on the California Court of Appeals and Legal ...
03 April, 2020
By eliminating government-created barriers to opportunity, state and federal lawmakers can make it easier for those who are suddenly unemployed to earn a living from home or start a new home-based business. To learn more about reforms to empower en...
02 April, 2020
In his “Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity” series, PRI’s Dr. Wayne Winegarden has argued that one of the most important ways that elected officials can help to lift people up the economy ladder is by embracing policies that encourage entrepreneur...
01 April, 2020
That’s what Pres. Trump said in a tweet on the record-shattering $2 trillion phase 3 stimulus package. Right by the Bay doesn’t question the need for government to step up to help the economy get through the coronavirus pandemic. But even during thi...
31 March, 2020
Dr. Mark Skousen is one of the most prominent libertarians in the country and founder of FreedomFest – the largest gathering of libertarians in the world. Dr. Skousen also teaches economics at Chapman University. In this podcast, we discuss the eco...
30 March, 2020All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas Layin’ in the sun, Talkin’ ’bout the things They woulda coulda shoulda done… –Shel Silverstein As of this writing, the Trump Administration has pledged to spend more than a trillion dollars...
24 March, 2020Until recently, terms like social distancing and even the coronavirus were nonexistent. Now these terms could come to define the beginning of a pending global recession the likes of which have yet to test modern economic markets. As parts of Californ...
23 March, 2020This podcast is a recorded panel discussion on entrepreneurship from PRI’s second annual policy conference in Sacramento. The state’s new law re-classifying many independent contractors to employees has put the livelihoods of many entrepreneurs and ...
16 March, 2020Nearly three dozen bills intended to revise or repeal Assembly Bill 5, which restricts workers’ freedom and could potentially kill the burgeoning gig economy, have been introduced in Sacramento. Here is some of the latest, and most important, news ab...
12 March, 2020Baby I’ll spill the facts Well honey it ain’t your money ‘Cause baby I got plenty of that I love you for your pink Cadillac. – Bruce Springsteen If you’ve ever admired the gal who managed to steal The Boss’s heart with her pink Cadi...
10 March, 2020Janice Rogers Brown, a former U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the D.C. Circuit and former Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court was the keynote speaker at PRI’s second annual policy conference in Sacramento. Judge Brown discusses the thr...
09 March, 2020As a former legislative staffer in the California State Assembly, I often asked myself when reviewing legislation, “do we really need this bill?” I asked myself the same question when I came across the introduction of a bill mandating gender-neutral ...
05 March, 2020Our colleague Wayne Winegarden wrote a marvelous piece for his Forbes column on “Bernie’s Math Problem.” To fund free health care, free housing, free college and so on, the Democrat frontrunner plans to make “billionaires pay their fair share of tax...
02 March, 2020Love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons when California enacts public policy the impact is felt across the country. And so, it has been again with the January 1st implementation of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the so called “gig employmen...
26 February, 2020Lord Jamie Borwick of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords was a recent guest at a PRI luncheon in San Francisco. Britain’s House of Lords has certain similarities with the U.S. Senate, except the members are mostly appointed, or as in Lord Borwick’s ...
17 February, 2020Back in 2017, concerned over the sclerotic growth of the U.S. economy, PRI published a series of studies titled Beyond the New Normal by economist and PRI senior fellow Wayne Winegarden. Up until that point, annual real GDP growth averaged just 1.9 p...
13 February, 2020In October 2019, the Pacific Research Institute released findings of a new report, titled Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity #2 Entrepreneurship as a Pathway to the American Dream. The report, authored by Wayne Winegarden, contends that “ov...
30 January, 2020The complexity of the financial markets encourages people to support positions that would be unthinkable in most other situations. Such is the case with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposed new regulations of proxy advisory firms. ...
27 January, 2020I have written before on the benefits and drawbacks of the various universal basic income (UBI) proposals bubbling up the last few years in the American political scene, specifically the economic, political, and moral dimensions of these policies. A...
14 January, 2020The United States is in the midst of the longest economic expansion on record. The U.S. economy has been growing for more than 10 years. The unemployment rate is near its lowest point ever. And yet, poverty continues to be persistent nationwide. Tens...
13 January, 2020More than 38 million Americans are living in poverty, according to the latest U.S. Census data. That’s just under 12% of the population. Not exactly what President Lyndon Johnson had in mind when he declared war on poverty in 1964, more than a half-c...
03 January, 2020In 1967 Arthur Koestler wrote The Ghost in the Machine, which was essentially a critique of the hypothesis that the human mind could be viewed as a machine, a sort of chemical computer. He went on to consider that if were a computer, then what......
02 January, 2020Two days before Thanksgiving, financial services firm Charles Schwab announced it was relocating its headquarters from San Francisco to Texas. The Wall Street Journal’s explanation: “The brokerage giant heads for a state that doesn’t punish finance.”...
16 December, 2019Wayne Winegarden, PRI’s Senior Fellow in Business & Economics and Director of the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, joined the Andy Caldwell Show on AM 1440 to discuss his most recent entrepreneurship study . Wayne’s interv...
12 December, 2019PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics, Dr. Wayne Winegarden, submitted written comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission on their proposed rule change regarding more disclosure of conflicts of interest by proxy advisory firms, calling ...
12 December, 2019California’s attorney general has become one of the most powerful political offices in the state. The powers granted to the Golden State’s top cop are numerous and impactful. The attorney general is often front and center for state and federal lawsui...
05 December, 2019Jessica Locke, a paramedic living in Linn Creek, did some traditional mall-type shopping over Thanksgiving weekend, she said Friday night at a neighborhood social gathering in Republic. Locke, who’s lived in the United States since 2010 after m...
02 December, 2019The flood of lousy legislation that has poured out of Sacramento for the last two decades or so truly astonishes in its volume. As fourth-rate as the lawmaking has been, though, nothing has been worse than Assembly Bill 5, an existential threat to bo...
02 December, 2019Sacramento politicians have heralded the state’s record-low 4.0 percent unemployment figures. While this is good news, anyone living in Southern California will tell you that things aren’t as rosy as they appear to be. Take what’s going on in Imperi...
01 December, 2019Lars brings on regular guest Dr. Henry Miller, a physician, a molecular biologist and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, and widely published in both scholarly journals and the popular press and the owner of HenryMillerMD dot ORG to dis...
25 November, 2019Academics and former agency heads have called for the Food and Drug Administration to become an independent agency, out from under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Although the FDA has real problems, giving it more i...
25 November, 2019PRI senior fellow in business and economics Wayne Winegarden discusses the latest study in the Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity series, “Entrepreneurship as a Pathway to the American Dream” on the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson Sh...
21 November, 2019PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden discusses California’s public pension crisis – and the new report showing that there are now more than 80,000 members of the $100K Pension Club – on Dr. Drew Midday Live w...
21 November, 2019The United States tweet first, tariff second trade policy against China continues to define American -Chinese relations. As both nations pursue the “Cold War light” escalation through tariffs, the United States continues to drum up new regulations to...
19 November, 2019When I was on vacation recently in Europe, our tour guide would tell us stories every night about her time living as a young bride in Greece with her late husband and young daughter. As we departed, she said she would love to be our......
18 November, 2019Recently we ran across several fascinating articles about civics, liberal arts, and climate hysteria that raise basic questions about the content taught at too many of our educational institutions: Has our society lost sight of the fundamental purpos...
14 November, 2019Amid an unprecedented – and excruciating – recent number of intentional power outages to mitigate the risk of fires during California’s dry, windy conditions, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a number of policy measures, ranging from demands for $100 r...
12 November, 2019“To observe government is to observe the absence of accountability,” James Freeman wrote in the Wall Street Journal.1 That’s certainly true of unwise regulation of many innovative technologies; and modern biotechnology, also known as “genetic engine...
06 November, 2019Fears that the President’s Trump’s trade war with China will lead to a recession may have faded from the headlines, but economists say it cannot be discounted. “We’re not expecting a recession anytime soon, but, that said, there are a number of headw...
05 November, 2019
PRI’s Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss the latest study in his Building Barriers to Opportunity series. We discuss how overregulation and misguided government policies make it harder for immigrant and low-income entrepreneurs to start a business,...
04 November, 2019
A new study released today by the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute finds that government has erected barriers to opportunity that make it very difficult for immigrant and low-income entrepreneurs to lift themselves out of poverty and climb the ...
30 October, 2019Many of America’s largest public corporations recently made a commitment in principle to their “stakeholders,” which included working with their communities and “protect[ing] the environment by embracing sustainable practices.” Leaders of 181 of the ...
16 October, 2019My last column began a conversation our nation desperately needs to have – forcefully pushing back against the dangerous and misguided myths promoting by proponents of socialism in the U.S. surrounding the supposed socialist success stories in ...
15 October, 2019The initial report on Stockton’s “basic income” experiment, in which 125 residents in low-income Zip Codes receive $500 a month, shows that most of the money that can be tracked has been spent on necessities. But that’s only part of the story. Forty ...
10 October, 2019Now that dust has settled after the signing of perhaps the hottest bill this legislative session – Assembly Bill 5 – what’s next for those who work in the gig economy? A panel of free-market advocates and subject matter experts recently got together ...
09 October, 2019
Hillsdale College Professor of Economics and Public Policy Gary Wolfram shares his thoughts on some of the hot topics in the debate over free-market economic policy today, including the Green New Deal, electric car subsidies, the growing push for soc...
07 October, 2019California continues to lead the nation in poverty, according to a recent Census Bureau report. The report (pdf), released in September 2019, measured states’ functional poverty rates, which takes into account the cost of living and other factors. Ca...
03 October, 2019Biosimilars have the opportunity to bring significant savings to state Medicaid programs and consumers with commercial insurance according to a new study released today by Pacific Research Institute. “Every state would experience significant savings ...
02 October, 2019DOWNLOAD THE BRIEF California lawmakers won’t give up on their crusade to force everyone in the state into electric cars (before eventually removing us out of our cars altogether). That electric vehicles neither sell nor perform up to reasonable expe...
01 October, 2019The history of failure, destruction, and death lying in the wake of nearly every socialist experiment is well-known in our country today. Modern-day proponents of socialism cannot point to a single instance of their failed dogma being successful in a...
30 September, 2019
PRI Fellow in Business and Economics Damon Dunn joins us to discuss his new brief on the rise of socialism. He shares stories from his childhood growing up in poverty in Texas as his inspiration for striving to work his way up the economic ladder rat...
30 September, 2019One of the most contentious battles of this year’s legislative session was AB 5, with labor and gig economy companies duking out over the definition of who is an employee and who is an independent contractor. In this battle over the “new economy” and...
26 September, 2019Listen to Damon Dunn, Fellow of Business and Economics at the Pacific Research Institute, joins the David Webb Show on SiriusXM Patriot 125 to discuss why socialism doesn’t work. Click here to listen ShareTweetPinShare...
24 September, 2019
PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss his new study on the State and Local Tax cap in the 2017 federal tax reform legislation. Wayne discusses how the legislation amounted to taxpayers in low-tax states sub...
23 September, 2019I have long adhered to the proposition that we should extend grace to our ideological opponents. In fact, when discussing fellow Americans, I reject wholesale the increasingly common language of combat in politics (e.g. political “enemies,” culture w...
17 September, 2019On Thursday night, the Democratic presidential candidates will meet for the next presidential debate in Houston. One surprising candidate who qualified for the Houston debate and has attracted a small but growing following of supporters (known as the...
12 September, 2019Damon Dunn sits down with Lars Larson Show to discuss his new PRI brief on why socialist policies cater to the poor and how the left takes advantage of this. ShareTweetPinShare...
06 September, 2019Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with one eye on California presidential primary votes and the other on the state’s rich political donors, recently wrote an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee in which she demanded someone do something about that “shameful” gig econom...
05 September, 2019Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-New York, recently stood in front of a home in a beautiful neighborhood in White Plains, NY, to decry — of all things — the area’s high local tax burden. “We all know that one of the biggest burde...
05 September, 2019
Recalling his experiences overcoming extreme poverty, former collegiate and pro football player and successful businessman Damon Dunn makes the case for why socialism doesn’t work in a new brief published by the nonpartisan, California-based think ta...
04 September, 2019Ask Americans what Labor Day means, and they’ll likely say it marks the end of summer. One last chance to wear white and go for a swim before the pool is drained. But as its name suggests, Labor Day was established to celebrate labor –- organiz...
03 September, 2019It seems you can’t scroll through your social media feed or morning newsletter without reading commentary about inverted yield curve and recession. A 2020 economic recession is the talk of political pundits, financial talking heads, and presidential ...
03 September, 2019Despite evidence of a recent slowdown, the American economy is strong according to nearly all traditional economic indicators and has been for multiple years. Nearly a decade of economic expansion has led to record highs being recorded in the stock m...
27 August, 2019The Business Roundtable recently released a statement announcing it had redefined “the purpose of a corporation.” Signed by almost 200 of the most powerful CEOs in America, the statement “affirms the essential role corporations can ...
26 August, 2019Last fall, Democratic congressional candidates successfully painted the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a tax increase on hard working Californians to pick-up even more congressional seats. Congress, they charged, raised the tax burden of many ...
21 August, 2019The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA) was signed into law on Dec. 22, 2017. The Act reformed the U.S. corporate income tax code cutting the rate to a globally competitive 21%. Reforms on the personal income tax side, which are scheduled to expire in......
19 August, 2019
A new study released today by the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute, a California-based free market think tank, found that capping the State and Local Tax deduction brought broad-based tax relief to millions of Americans, while putting an end to...
15 August, 2019Sally C. Pipes offered her critique about a reported gender pay gap in the White House. “Sally Pipes of the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco argued, “You can’t just generally add up all the women and all the men. What ar...
12 August, 2019CalPERS and CalSTRS – the two largest public employee pension funds in both California and the nation –just announced their annual investment returns for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Once again, it’s not good news for California taxpayers. Both funds re...
12 August, 2019Every other year, I always take a big trip somewhere around the world. This fall, I’m excited to be traveling to England, Ireland, and Scotland for the first time. As I prepare for my trip, the UK is in the midst of great political turmoil......
01 August, 2019Perhaps the most controversial bill of this year’s legislative session is legislation responding to last year’s state Supreme Court ruling that has the potential to disrupt how millions of people work in California. In the Dynamex ruling, the Court e...
25 July, 2019You may have heard about Libra, Facebook’s newest venture aimed at the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. Facebook released a whitepaper on Libra in June, detailing how the company plans to use Libra as a decentralized blockchain, low-volatili...
24 July, 2019California has lived on the trope of being the hub of technology startups and innovation for decades. California’s economic success has long been touted and celebrated, none more so than the technology gold rush in the Bay Area. But despite Californi...
16 July, 2019Home ownership provides basic financial literacy, drives wealth creation, and increases free cash flow for individuals and families. However, it can be difficult to differentiate between having surplus cash and wealth. Having surplus cash is havin...
11 July, 2019Citing an oft-used U.S. Census Bureau statistic that women earn 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn, presidential hopeful and California Senator Kamala Harris said that if elected, she would end gender pay discrimination by requiring com...
08 July, 2019Many California legislators seem to believe in open borders — not just the border to Mexico but also the borders to Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. Businesses are slipping out of state through those boundaries at an alarming rate because of the difficul...
02 July, 2019The California Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday (June 26) on a bill that caps consumer loan rates and threatens to sever a vital credit lifeline for many. Oddly, three commercial lenders who offer the kind of loans su...
25 June, 2019After being soundly defeated in the Senate 0-57 (43 Democrats voted “present”), the Green New Deal continues to languish in the House. Roll Call reported the following excuse from Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “I can’t say we’re going to take that and pass ...
19 June, 2019The Trump administration’s trade wars are whipping Fed policy back and forth By Sarah Foster President Donald Trump’s trade wars just might prompt the Federal Reserve rate cut he’s been clamoring for — but for the wrong reasons. Weeks after the White...
07 June, 2019US recovery closes in on 10 year milestone as fears abound that the party is ending By Calder McHugh As the U.S. economy inches closer to a record-setting decade of sustained growth, experts are increasingly worried that a cliff — caused by a multi-f...
05 June, 2019In the classic work Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, the character Humpty Dumpty says that “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” Responding, Alice (of Wonderland fame) says, “The question is.....
05 June, 2019When the state Supreme Court issued a ruling last year threatening workers’ ability to operate as independent contractors, it sent a chill through the gig economy. The temperature dropped a few more degrees recently when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of...
04 June, 2019GOP senators speak out against Trump’s tariffs on Mexican imports By Debra J. Saunders The Trump administration worked Tuesday to contain blowback that followed President Donald Trump’s announcement last week of new tariffs on Mexican goods — both fr...
04 June, 2019One of the hottest investment trends promises to do well while by doing good. This investment trend is called environmental, social, and governance investing, or ESG funds. Not all ESG funds have similar investment strategies. Some ESG funds actively...
02 June, 2019Putting a question mark on ESG fund performance by Leo Almazora An increasing number of stakeholders are buying into sustainable investments, figuratively and literally. Aside from fund providers’ growing willingness to offer values-based investment ...
23 May, 2019There have decades of bipartisan rhetoric about the virtues of home ownership, with politicians competing with one another to see who can propose the worst ideas for responsible homeownership. Some policies, like preferential tax treatment and credit...
23 May, 2019Listen to PRI senior fellow in business and economics Wayne Winegarden discuss federal spending and the “15 Percent Solution” level of federal government to optimize economic growth on the “POTUS Morning Briefing” with Tim Far...
22 May, 2019ESG funds that champion environmental and social causes have historically underperformed funds investing in the broader market over the long-term, so finds a new study released today by California-based, free-market think tank, the Pacific Research I...
22 May, 2019
In this podcast, Bartlett Cleland, PRI’s Senior Fellow in Tech and Innovation, discusses the state of tech policy including trade negotiations with China on intellectual property, privacy laws, the debate over the possible break-up of social media co...
20 May, 2019They were warned. They wouldn’t listen. But they should have. A university study confirms what so many of us already knew — and what several other studies have corroborated: Minimum wage hikes kill jobs. Scholars at the University of California...
16 May, 2019Listen to Dr. Wayne Winegarden, PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics, discuss his “The 15 Percent Solution” study – which outlines the optimal government economic and spending policies to maximize economic growth – on T...
15 May, 2019A central theme of my previous columns has been the importance and primacy of the individual. Economic policymakers cling to their blackboard models but forget that even for unambiguously “net-positive” interventions, there are millions of people bei...
09 May, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=L-va5HLzTcs Watch PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden speak at a forum in Washington, DC hosted by the Institute for Pension Fund Integrity on public pensions, proxy adviso...
08 May, 2019
Tommy Few talks about his legal efforts to fully secure the freedoms won by all public employees following the Janus decision. He shares his first-hand experience with how his local teachers unions is trying to preserve membership, and his legal bat...
06 May, 2019Silicon Valley and Wall Street aren’t the only ones celebrating IPOs this year – Sacramento is doing its share of the partying. That’s because the state is expected to receive a deluge of tax dollars over the next several years thanks to capital gai...
30 April, 2019The skills and education of every American will form the basis of our nation’s long term success, as well as the solution to many of the most divisive issues in American politics. Issues such as wage stagnation, income inequality, unaffordable housin...
29 April, 2019Milton Friedman used to say, “keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending because that’s the true tax”. Judged against this criterion, despite the recent tax reforms, the U.S. economy is still taxed too much. At the...
26 April, 2019Gene therapies are transformative treatments that fundamentally differ from traditional medical and pharmaceutical options because they modify a patient’s DNA in order to address the genetic causes of diseases. These therapies have the potential to d...
19 April, 2019Many Sacramento lawmakers have named reducing poverty and economic inequality among their top priorities this session. They have unveiled a variety of proposals to address these issues, most center around new government programs, increased state sp...
18 April, 2019California has been a red-hot destination, and comfortable home, for entrepreneurs at least as far back as the mid-19th Century, when 300,000 fortune hunters swarmed West during the Gold Rush. In 2019, it is still attracting business pioneers. But at...
17 April, 2019Even during times of strong job and economic growth, as we’re experiencing today, economists are looking for warning signs about future economic distress – after all, it is called the “dismal science”. The fact that entrepreneurship is declining in t...
16 April, 2019
PRI senior fellow in business and economics Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss his new series exploring how costly government regulations serve as a barrier to entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and job opportunities to lift peopl...
15 April, 2019A dominant narrative in recent American politics, on full display as the Democratic presidential candidates race left to do battle in their upcoming primaries, is that America is a land of inextricably fixed “haves” and “have nots.” The challenge of ...
11 April, 2019Will Rogers said, “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” But Rogers never came up against the current California legislature, which these days isn’t just holding a legislative se...
08 April, 2019
Costly regulations serve as a barrier to entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and job opportunities to lift people into the middle class, concludes the first paper in a new series from the California-based, free-market think tank, the...
03 April, 2019Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) has just doubled down on one of the Trump Administration’s unsound ideas. His proposal is disappointing for many reasons, particularly because Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has proposed an alternative re...
01 April, 2019The long-standing failures of the American welfare state have left politicians and policy wonks searching desperately for answers, including a willingness to consider radical changes to how we as a nation care for the poor. With little to show from b...
28 March, 2019You would think that California’s current $21.4 billion budget surplus would be plenty of money to fund the spending wish list of those thwarted over the past 8 years by former Gov. Jerry Brown’s adherence to the principle of subsidiarity. Think agai...
28 March, 2019California is proving once again that it’s the worst place to do business in America. This time, the state is attempting to collect up to eight years of back taxes from Amazon sellers whose products were temporarily stored in Amazon warehouses throug...
26 March, 2019
Watch PRI Fellow in Business and Economics Damon Dunn discuss the push for universal basic income with host Graham Ledger on the “Daily Ledger” on One America News Network. ShareTweetPinShare...
21 March, 2019Health care costs will rise unless Congress blocks harmful tax By Ross Marchand The American people – and just about all our elected officials – frequently and justifiably complain about the high cost of health care. But unless Congress acts, a tax i...
20 March, 2019Spring is in the air, which of course means it’s time to start thinking about the federal budget. Our latest Beyond the New Normal analysis examined what it would take to transform our current unaffordable federal budget. And while it would take poli...
13 March, 2019You don’t make health care more affordable by increasing its cost. Yet that is precisely what the currently suspended medical device tax threatens unless Congress permanently repeals it. Although permanent repeal failed in the last Congress, Senators...
11 March, 2019I recently explained in these pages how government welfare programs keep people at a sustainable level of poverty instead of helping people escape poverty. Little of the actual results of welfare policies resemble the promises made by their proponent...
06 March, 2019Washington, DC is currently in the grips of techno dystopian group think. Lobbyists and activists with something to gain, and politicians looking to reap rewards, have dreamt up an absurd imagined society where there is great injustice caused by tech...
04 March, 2019Congress could soon vote on legislation that would gut America’s intellectual property laws. The bill isn’t just bad news for big pharmaceutical companies that hold lucrative patents. It’s terrible news for patients — medical ...
01 March, 2019Welfare programs treat the symptoms of poverty, not the cause. As a result, they will never be the solution to ending poverty, nor are they designed to be a lasting solution. We have created a massive, cumbersome bureaucracy to administer an ineffect...
27 February, 2019Today’s hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee will, unfortunately, be another wasted opportunity. Surely, Senators will make grandiose speeches and be shocked at the cost of drugs. They will also continue to support the very policies that ...
26 February, 2019Listen to Dr. Wayne Winegarden, PRI Senior Fellow in Business and Economics as he joins Lars Larson to discuss his latest report detailing how we reach the “15 Percent Solution”, or the optimal level of federal spending to maximize econom...
25 February, 2019They say that age and cunning always beats youth and exuberance. But when it comes to the latest dust-up between the Left’s old guard and the new Far Left, how it all plays out in the end isn’t so clear. The Left’s old guard has......
21 February, 2019
On the heels of the news that the national debt has surpassed $22 trillion, the Pacific Research Institute today recommended reforms to bring spending under control, reduce the national debt and maximize economic growth in the latest report in its Be...
19 February, 2019It used to be that political parties would argue over which policy was more effective at helping the largest number of people achieve the American dream. Now, a growing chorus on the left have begun to argue that the American dream itself is a lie,.....
16 February, 2019State and local public pension funds are trillions of dollars in debt. Without fully accounting for the risks, state public pension funds have $1.4 trillion in unfunded liabilities (e.g. debt) according to the Pew Center’s latest estimates. Even more...
14 February, 2019In response to the problem of rising list prices for drugs, elected officials continue to propose counterproductive reforms. Whether it is importing drugs from Canada or indexing U.S. drug prices to the prices charged in other countries, these polici...
12 February, 2019Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar just released a sweeping proposal that would drastically change how Medicare pays for advanced cancer therapies and other potent medicines. The plan relies on foreign price controls to reduce drug spendin...
11 February, 2019It doesn’t happen often enough, but sometimes freedom wins in California. In the most recent of these rare events, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – yes, the Ninth – affirmed late last month a lower-court ruling that said the San Francisco or...
07 February, 2019In January, PRI had the pleasure of hosting Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald at a luncheon in Southern California to discuss her new book The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine our Cult...
05 February, 2019Remember 1999? Yes, it was a memorable year thanks to the Prince song. But, the last year of the 20th century is also noted for the launch of MySpace, the announcement of Blue Tooth, the rage that was Napster, and the panic over Y2K and the......
31 January, 2019Generic EpiPen to Become Available Soon By Ashley Bateman Drug maker Sandoz announced it will debut a generic EpiPen model that provides a more affordable option for the rising number of allergy patients in the United States. The epinephrine auto-inj...
29 January, 2019It’s not often that another state can top California when it comes to protecting public employee unions. But Oregon’s House Bill 2643 takes the prize so far for the most audacious attempt to thwart the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus decision. Janus v. A...
29 January, 2019
Steve Moore is the co-author along with Arthur Laffer of the new book Trumponomics. He discusses Trumponomics, its key principles, how it differs from Reaganomics, and even some aspects of Trumponomics that he doesn’t agree with (no spoiler alert ne...
28 January, 2019The old joke about the drunk and the policeman is apropos for far too many pharmaceutical studies. Typically, the joke goes something like the following: A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk...
28 January, 2019Making it more expensive to drink in San Francisco is not one of Proposition C’s objectives. But it was nearly one of its initial effects. Young’s Market Co., a wine and spirits distributor based in Tustin that does business across the western U.S., ...
17 January, 2019We’re painting the roses red, Painting the roses red, And many a tear we shed, Because we know, They’ll cease to grow, In fact, they’ll soon be dead. And yet we go ahead, Painting the roses red Just like the characters in Alice in W...
15 January, 2019
We support free markets not because some 18th- or 19th-century European philosopher said they’re great. Rather, we support a free market system because experience has shown it delivers more opportunity and prosperity to Americans than any other econo...
14 January, 2019Irate over plummeting stock prices in recent weeks, the media reported that President Trump wanted to fire his appointed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. But can he really fire him? It turns out that the law is murky in this area. Trump can fire Powell...
08 January, 2019Too often, drug pricing analyses do not shed light on how much drug expenditures are actually increasing because these studies examine the wrong price. The latest iteration is an analysis by Rx Savings Solutions. According to the Wall Street Journal,...
03 January, 2019Americans of all stripes should be able to unite in support of trade. It’s fundamental to a diverse and healthy economy. Robust U.S. trade relationships around the world are also critical to the national economy. That’s especially true in California....
22 December, 2018One idea that has been gaining traction recently is a system of universal income, also known as basic income. The city of Stockton, California will be the nation’s first city to launch a universal income pilot program in 2019. While the specific pol...
18 December, 2018
PRI’s Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss his new study exploring how big government energy policies in California and New York are increasing energy burdens on rural, poor, and minority communities, and how free-market ideas can more effectively re...
17 December, 2018Last week, the California Supreme Court heard the case Cal Fire Local 2881 v. CalPERS which challenged the 2013 law (the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act or PEPRA) that eliminated state employees’ ability to add up to five years of emp...
13 December, 2018Government solutions often come with a price. For the America Invents Act (AIA), this price was an unintended impediment to medical innovation. Proposed legislation known as the Hatch-Waxman Integrity Act can reduce these costs, if Congress takes adv...
12 December, 2018My last blog post discussed the risks that ESG investing creates for CalPERS and CalSTRS. If not addressed, then both taxpayers and public employees will bear unnecessary costs and risks. Unfortunately, SEC rules are making this problem even worse. T...
11 December, 2018I just returned from my annual Thanksgiving family trip to Hawaii where it was Day 40-something of a hotel workers’ strike at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. I had a hunch something was amiss when our Uber driver pulled into the driveway and a lone young....
06 December, 2018
Legislating Energy Poverty Shows Market-Based Policies More Effective in Cutting Emissions...
05 December, 2018California’s public pensions are in trouble. While the Pew Charitable Trusts reports that California’s current unfunded liabilities are nearly $170 billion, as I recently reported in my chartbook on California’s pension crisis, the crisis is much wor...
05 December, 2018As I write this article in late November of 2018, the stock market has fallen significantly from its recent highs. These losses, which have erased nearly all the gains made thus far in 2018 push us toward official correction territory for both the D...
04 December, 2018While success still has many fathers, failure is no longer an orphan. President Obama’s recent speeches and rallies demonstrate that, now, failure is simply redefined as success. The costs from this revisionism is high. Creating false narratives enco...
30 November, 2018By Bethany Blankley The latest report calling for occupational licensing reforms joins others in saying that strict licensing requirements cost millions of jobs, billions of dollars in economic costs, and reduced overall GDP . . . “All too often, the...
28 November, 2018If your holiday meals include filet mignon, rack of lamb, roast pork, or even charcuterie, you might want to reach for a second helping while you can still afford it. That’s because Oxford University researchers are proposing a tax on meat. Their go...
26 November, 2018There is no shortage of bad ideas when it comes to the pharmaceutical market. One such proposal would allow drugs to be imported directly from other countries, such as Canada. Then there is the Trump Administration’s proposal that would effectively a...
19 November, 2018In the early 21st century, American fiscal policy must balance and prioritize two fundamental goals. First, we need to create the best possible environment for investment and innovation, setting the stage for another century of unparalleled prosperit...
19 November, 2018Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar just released a sweeping proposal that would drastically change how Medicare pays for advanced cancer therapies and other potent medicines. The plan relies on foreign price controls to reduce drug spendin...
16 November, 2018The SEC requires all institutional investors to vote on all matters put forth in proxy statements, or the measures voted on during shareholder meetings. For most institutional investors, keeping up with all of these issues is not feasible, so they tu...
15 November, 2018Argues That SEC Should Ensure Shareholder Interests Are Top Priority in Investment Decisions SAN FRANCISCO – Policy reforms should be enacted to ensure that proxy advisory firms promote fund managers’ fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders and in...
14 November, 2018It’s official. Amazon has announced plans to establish its second headquarters in New York in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens and Crystal City, Virginia, which is just outside Washington, D.C. I first wrote about Amazon’s search in ...
13 November, 2018In some excellent reporting by Chris Reed of CalWatchdog, Reed found that more than 100 local governments in California asked voters for tax hikes on Election Day, double the 56 the Bond Buyer said it recorded in November 2016. These 100+ measures we...
08 November, 2018There are not enough politicians who know what it takes to run a business. Many argue that government would improve if it was run more like a business. Having been an entrepreneur and business owner, I know firsthand the blessings and challenges that...
07 November, 2018Watch PRI’s Wayne Winegarden debate “the future of American retirement” with former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and others at a recent Pepperdine University School of Public Policy forum in Washington, DC. ShareTweet...
01 November, 2018Listen to PRI’s senior fellow in business and economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden discuss President Trump’s drug pricing transparency proposal on the nationally-syndicated “Lars Larson Show.” The interview begins at the 54:25 mark...
31 October, 2018It’s been a rocky road for the stock market so far in October. Historically, the financial markets aren’t jittery around mid-term elections. But rising interest rates, a trade war, the mysterious death of an Arab journalist, and Central Americans o...
29 October, 2018At 2 pm Eastern time today, President Trump spoke at the Department of Health and Human Services where he recommended a litany of policies that would ultimately impose price controls on the pharmaceutical market. Take his proposal to force the prices...
25 October, 2018Rarely is there bipartisan agreement that a tax cut won’t cost the federal government money. But, in the case of the medical device tax (a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices and products that was passed as part of the Affordable Care Act) this is......
24 October, 2018As part of the Affordable Care Act, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices and products was passed. The tax was levied on devices such as pacemakers, advanced imaging technologies (Cat Scan, MRI and ultrasound equipment), artificial joints, surgical gl...
18 October, 2018Our politics are full of paeans to small business. Regardless of one’s policy preferences or party affiliation, everyone appears rhetorically to be on the side of small business. As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I am reminded daily of the...
18 October, 2018Watch PRI’s Wayne Winegarden discuss the Trump Administration proposal on drug pricing advertising on “America Talks Live” with Dr. Gina Loudon and John Cardillo on Newsmax TV. ShareTweetPinShare...
17 October, 2018Pete Constant, former San Jose City Councilman and president of the Retirement Security Initiative, joins us to share his experiences as a local elected official grappling with runaway public employee pensions, and what can be done to tame California...
15 October, 2018This essay is meant to be a simple and straight forward look at how adding specific skill sets allowed me to have socioeconomic mobility and earn wages that allow me to send my daughter to private school, own a home, and enjoy a better present......
04 October, 2018When I was in the investment industry in the 1990s, my friend Jeannette and I observed that after meetings and conferences, the top executives – mostly men but a few women — often played a round of golf. We knew a lot of bonding took......
03 October, 2018Regnery Publishing Vice President and Executive Editor Harry Crocker joins us to talk about his new book Armstrong, which imagines what would have if George Armstrong Custer survived the Battle of Little Big Horn. We discuss his inspiration for writ...
01 October, 2018This summer, I had the opportunity to interview Andy Puzder on PRI’s “Next Round” podcast. In chatting with him about his new book Capitalist Comeback, the former Trump nominee for Secretary of Labor and I were both astounded at the speed of the eco...
27 September, 2018Last week, I celebrated my 42nd birthday in style – taking a few days off following our Baroness Thatcher Gala to enjoy some of the sites of Southern California. I spent a lovely afternoon at Downtown Disney, which is an entertainment district right ...
26 September, 2018Americans are facing two very different pension outlooks. Most private sector workers contribute to 401(k) plans (which are often matched by employers), and rely on investments, savings, and Social Security for their retirement. But, their savings is...
20 September, 2018Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He announced in June that he opposed a local ballot measure being pushed by labor unions and activist groups to impose new rent control restrictions in Sacramento. That mea...
19 September, 2018Calls for stricter environmental mandates contradict the broad public consensus on global warming. According to a 2018 report by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, seven out of ten Americans believe global warming is happening and six ...
18 September, 2018It didn’t take long for a California Supreme Court decision to start claiming victims. Bottle & Barlow, a “get loose stay sharp” joint on trendy R Street in Sacramento, where a gentleman can sip whisky and also be stylishly shorn, has lost its en...
18 September, 2018I used to tell my friends and colleagues to be sure to check out the Lord & Taylor website before they buy an outfit. Lord & Taylor doesn’t have operations in California, so the same Calvin Klein dress would be tax-free at Lord & Taylor,....
17 September, 2018Trump, Obama spar over economy. Who’s right? By Niv Elis By many metrics, the economy is booming, and both President Trump and former President Obama want you to know that they are the one to thank. Under Trump, the stock market hit new highs, ...
16 September, 2018In this and succeeding columns, I intend to develop a new paradigm for thinking about economic progress for America in the 21st century. I believe that supporters of free markets are faced with both extraordinary opportunities and great cause for con...
13 September, 2018Listen to PRI’s Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden discuss his new chartbook and study on California’s $1 trillion pension monster with Carl DeMaio on “The DeMaio Report” on KOGO Radio in San Diego. Share...
06 September, 2018
New PRI-Open the Books Chartbook Shows California’s Public Pension Monster Has Grown to Nearly $1 Trillion More Realistic Market Estimate Show State Pension Funds are Just 28 Percent Funded...
05 September, 2018Heading into the Labor Day weekend, we thought we would take a contrarian view of the holiday by reviewing Forbes columnist John Tamny’s new book, The End of Work. Last year, we interviewed him on our podcast on his previous book, Who Needs the Fed?...
27 August, 2018Play everyone’s favorite game show “What Will You Bid?” to learn about the broken competitive bidding process for providing durable medical equipment to Medicare patients. Read the new study by PRI’s Wayne Winegarden to learn ...
24 August, 2018During her recent campaign swing through California, Democratic socialist Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez visited the asparagus capital of America to meet with Mayor Michael Tubbs and explore ways to take a local universal basic income plan nationwide. “We t...
23 August, 2018We almost never find ourselves on the same side as celebs, so when “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon, now running for governor of New York, recently railed against taxpayer subsidies for the film industry, we couldn’t help but pop the popcorn. B...
21 August, 2018Pfizer CEO Ian Read recently told investors that he believes pharmaceuticals will soon be sold without rebates. While this change, if it comes to pass, is undoubtedly positive for patients, a question naturally arises: why? After all, rebates and dis...
16 August, 2018Just after the New Year began, California lawmakers, sore that the Federal Communications Commission restored a stolen freedom and repealed the Obama-era net neutrality rule, introduced their own net neutrality bill. The California Internet Consumer ...
16 August, 2018The United States benefits every day from the policy victories won by President Reagan’s administration. Enough time has passed since his tenure in the White House that many fair-minded observers, regardless of their political orientation, recognize ...
08 August, 2018Through its purchases of durable medical equipment (DME), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) helps many patients remain in their home and out of hospitals or other long-term care settings. These purchases cover a wide array of me...
07 August, 2018Tim and I have a little shtick on the PRI podcast where on the last question we ask each of our guests for a favorite wine recommendation. Our headquarters in San Francisco is just down the road from Wine Country and most everyone loves wine......
07 August, 2018This week, we celebrate what would have been Milton Friedman’s 106th birthday (he was born July 31, 1912). In celebration of Dr. Friedman’s important legacy defending free markets and free people, and the inspiration he has provided all ...
03 August, 2018Step one in any recovery program is to admit that the problem exists. And, make no mistake about it, California’s public pensions are addicted to debt. Solving this debt crisis requires political courage to implement fundamental reforms, which is why...
31 July, 2018Oh Canada, here I come! Well, not really. At least not permanently. This week I’m in Montreal and Quebec City for summer vacation. Before leaving, I decided to check out how the U.S. compares economically to Canada, and there’s no better source than ...
30 July, 2018Download the PDF When the Legislature declared a moratorium on cities enacting soda taxes, it felt like a win for freedom and a pushback of interventionism. But the busybodies never give up and they plow a fertile field in California, which has no ri...
26 July, 2018Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation joins us from Vancouver to discuss why California gas prices are so much higher than the rest of the nation, and what reforms would make a real difference in giving drivers some relief at the pump....
24 July, 2018When Andy Puzder was 10, he went with his father, a Ford salesman, to deliver a new car to a wealthy customer. “Mr. Humphrey” lived in opulence on the east side of Cleveland. Puzder marveled at the treasure before him, the enormous house, the grand.....
18 July, 2018On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision on Janus, the State Controller’s Office announced that beginning in July, it would stop deducting “fair share fees” from the paychecks of state workers who are not full union members. The fair share fee, ...
16 July, 2018Expenditures on prescription drugs grew 12.4 percent in 2014 and 8.9 percent in 2015. These eye-popping data are not representative of the long-term expenditure trend, however. Not only did the growth in prescription drugs expenditures slow to 1.3 pe...
12 July, 2018If there’s one thing that unites Californians, it’s a disdain for crony capitalism. What is crony capitalism, you ask? We see it all the time. Think local elected officials throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Amazon to try and lure their se...
12 July, 2018One of the most common themes in American politics is the emphasis on preserving or restoring our role as a land of opportunity. Across the political spectrum, there is a general sense that the intergenerational promise of upward mobility is becoming...
10 July, 2018Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute joins us in Vancouver for a discussion on how the free-market is a more effective way to achieve a global, clean energy future than new clean energy laws or excess regulations....
09 July, 2018Tax Calculator Part 2 In my last blog, I ran some numbers on the Tax Foundation’s new tax calculator to show the average tax cut for California households by congressional district under the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But I thought what would be......
04 July, 2018Download the PDF California’s “bullet” train to nowhere keeps going — nowhere. Unless tearing down a bridge just to rebuild it is somewhere. Construction of an overpass near Fresno was scrapped late last year—yes, we’re learning about this just...
27 June, 2018Leave it to the Tax Foundation to come with this cool online calculator to figure out how much you will save in taxes from the Trump tax cuts. The calculator asks you to plug in your AGI, your filing status (single or married), even details......
27 June, 2018Last week, the Supreme Court issued a major decision in a case about online retailers collecting sales taxes, South Dakota v. Wayfair. As PRI’s Bartlett Cleland recently wrote in Fox and Hounds, “the case is centered around the notion that an entity ...
25 June, 2018In June of 1930 President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Act. This Act imposed steep tariffs on over 20,000 different goods that Americans imported from other countries. As of its time, it was one of the largest tax increases in history. It was also ...
21 June, 2018There are plenty of similarities between Italy and California. Both are similar in size and have wonderful wine countries and picturesque coastlines. They also share high taxes, a challenging regulatory landscape, and a growing gap between their rich...
21 June, 2018Our guest in this podcast is Todd Gaziano of the Pacific Legal Foundation. As director of the newly created PLF Center for the Separation of Powers, Todd is working on a long-term project to roll back the power of unelected government administrators...
18 June, 2018No one should wonder why executives keep saying California is the worst state to do business in. Too many politicians see businesses as nothing more than vessels available to be drained of their substance for the funding of foolish ideas. The most re...
18 June, 2018
The business guru Peter Drucker is credited with the notion that “if you can’t measure something you can’t manage it”. Using this logic in reverse, perhaps the best way to thwart the misplaced attempts to manage global economic trade is to stop measu...
12 June, 2018A Supreme Court case to be decided by the end of June could require California residents to pay taxes to a variety states, counties, cities and even mosquito abatement districts across the country. South Dakota v. Wayfair is a case that asks whether ...
12 June, 2018“Pension risk includes lava,” said Keli’i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, a sister free-market think tank in Hawaii. Recently, the Grassroot Institute hosted an event titled “Navigating risk at Hawaii’s public pension system.” Thom Will...
12 June, 2018Public-sector employees who want to be freed of forced unionization are hoping that the Supreme Court will release them from their yoke when it issues its impending ruling in the case of a government worker who sued the union that claims to represent...
08 June, 2018Tax-Cut-Fueled Stock Buybacks Retard Emergence of Trump’s ‘Greatest’ Economy By Bradley Keoun President Donald Trump’s tax cuts have prompted corporate executives use the cash windfall to reward their own investors instead of ...
07 June, 2018The U.S. economy has generated more wealth for more people than any other economic system in human history, and it’s not even close. What began as a small group of colonies clustered near the eastern seaboard of a mostly empty continent founded by po...
07 June, 2018In 2017, there were 46 new novel drug innovations, including new treatments for cancers, Parkinson’s disease, and serious skin infections. These innovations are essential for improving the quality of health care in the U.S. However, innovation is not...
05 June, 2018New Study: Patients, Employers and Taxpayers Could Save Significantly if Barriers to Biosimilars Removed Case Study: Increasing Use of Infliximab Biosimilar Could Lower Costs Up to $465 Million Annually...
05 June, 2018The great investor Warren Buffett once said, “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” UC President Janet Napolitan...
04 June, 2018Without a hint of irony, while announcing the 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and the 10 percent tariffs on imported aluminum on May 31st, Commerce Secretary Ross proclaimed that “we take the view that without a strong economy, you cannot have s...
31 May, 2018By Brendan Pringle This afternoon some 8,000 Starbucks stores in the United States shut down for “racial-bias education” to prevent discrimination in its stores. Starbucks remains under fire after the arrest of two black men after they refused to lea...
30 May, 2018By Rowena Itchon and Tim Anaya This week, the Assembly and Senate face a key deadline. All bills originating must pass their “house of origin” by the end of the week (i.e., bills introduced in the Assembly must pass the Assembly). The Appropriation...
30 May, 2018That sound you hear is the rush of California politicians and various moneyed interests racing to try and take advantage of a recent Supreme Court ruling paving the way for sports betting in every state. On May 14, the Court struck down a federal law...
23 May, 2018Businesses in California could use some good news, but one wonders when — and sometimes if — any will ever come. At the same time, there seems to be no end to the bad news, at least when government authorities are involved. The most recen...
22 May, 2018Incentives drive all economic activity. Unfortunately, far too many of the incentives that underlie the U.S. health care sector discourage quality and encourage excessive costs. Our current health insurance system exemplifies this problem. The disinc...
21 May, 2018Due to its national implications, last week’s introduction of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) blueprint on drug prices is garnering all the attention. Despite its importance, HHS’ blueprint should not overshadow the many poor, and ...
17 May, 2018Cutting, styling, shampooing, and curling hair properly takes some practice. But how much before a person is skilled enough to obtain a license to perform those tasks in California? The state says at least 1,500 hours of training are needed. Common-s...
17 May, 2018We’re all hearing it: the bull market is “long on the tooth,” and the market volatility we’ve seen so far this year is a sign that a big correction, or even a bear market, may be around the corner. Interest rate fears, trade wars, and......
16 May, 2018It’s not news that the federal government spends too much. This year, the federal government will spend about $30,000 per taxpayer. That doesn’t count the public debt — every taxpayers’ share is over $145,000 — or unfunded liabiliti...
15 May, 2018California Policy Center head Will Swaim joins us to discuss the effort to increase worker freedom in California. We explore the Janus case pending before the Supreme Court, efforts to expand pension reform and government transparency, and the 2018 ...
14 May, 2018Wealth gap grows in San Diego, report says By Phillip Molnar Also published in Los Angeles Times If you feel left behind in San Diego’s economy, you’re not alone. The gap between the have and have-not’s in San Diego was the ninth-highest out of 100 c...
14 May, 2018Less than 32 percent of California voters who went to the polls on Election Day in 2016 pulled the lever for Donald Trump. These “deplorables” are probably delighted that Hillary Clinton isn’t president and pleased in general with how Trump has gover...
14 May, 2018California’s economy has now surpassed that of United Kingdom, making it the fifth-largest in the world if it were its own country. Despite this growth, and in contrast to the perception that all is well in California because the economy looks so rob...
09 May, 2018Health care is becoming less affordable every year. Over the past 10 years, national healthcare expenditures have grown 45 percent, but our economy has grown only 28 percent. This isn’t sustainable; and, solving this problem should be a top pol...
08 May, 2018As the sharing economy has grown in California, we’re changing how we approach many common life transactions. When we’re looking for a repair person to fix a broken toilet, now we might look to Thumbtack to bid out of the job when before we would......
08 May, 2018By Gil Weinreich More than two decades ago, I actually held a government job for a period of three years. It was a good job – I learned a lot and got to do interesting work, for which I remain grateful to this day.......
04 May, 2018By Jill Sederstrom Patients would save both time and money if neighborhood pharmacies could administer more adult vaccines. However, state-level regulations remain a significant barrier to achieving this goal. According to the study released by the P...
03 May, 2018
In the aftermath of a record $1.3 trillion federal spending deal, the latest report in the Pacific Research Institute’s Beyond the New Normal series makes the case that such record spending levels hurts economic growth and American prosperity. The ne...
02 May, 2018If you want to handicap a man for the rest of his life, deny him an education. This is manifestly true in America, as the disadvantages associated with a poor education tend to multiply in a free society and a free economy. It is our......
02 May, 2018It should be no surprise that the Trump tariffs are not having their intended effect. Consider the impact on California farmers as documented by Bloomberg.com: More than half of Dan Vincent’s projected 2018 profit was wiped out with a stroke of Presi...
26 April, 2018“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. It’s especially cruel for Californians because today, April 23, is the day when California taxpayers have collectively earned enough money to pay their federal, state, and local tax bill for the year,...
23 April, 2018Is he, or isn’t he? That’s the big question when it comes to the $100 billion in tariffs that President Trump has threatened to impose on China. Many supporters of these threatened tariffs would claim that the answer is: he isn’t; or more accurately,...
16 April, 2018Last week, the California Chamber of Commerce came out with its annual list of Job Killer bills. In putting together this list, the Chamber wanted to call attention to the negative impact these 21 bills have on the state’s job climate and economy sh...
12 April, 2018The Administration’s call to impose billions of dollars of tariffs on Americans who consume goods and services made in China is economic folly. Nevertheless, the Administration incorrectly touts that these tariffs will benefit the economy. Such claim...
11 April, 2018New research indicates that coffee might help cut the risk of heart disease. Apparently, that was taken as good news everywhere — except California. Four days after that study was published, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge issued a prelimina...
10 April, 2018Salim Furth and Emily Hamilton, research fellows with the free-market Mercatus Center at George Mason University, join us to discuss their new research brief on Senate Bill 827, one of this year's highest-profile housing bills, and other ways that th...
02 April, 2018Last week, Tesla analysts at Goldman Sachs reiterated their sell rating of the stock, citing decreased delivery projections of its Models S and X, and slower production of its mass market Model 3 (see: that’s what I want!). Goldman analyst David Tam...
28 March, 2018“Have you heard about Flippy?” That’s what my colleague and fellow Right By the Bay contributor Rowena Itchon asked me recently. I hadn’t…so I Googled it. Flippy is a burger-flipping robot designed to operate alongside human workers in commercial kit...
23 March, 2018By Matt D’Angelo The recent tax legislation mean small businesses everywhere are getting a break on their taxes. The legislation, which is one of the most significant tax overhauls passed in decades, provides pass-through businesses and corpora...
21 March, 2018Uber and Lyft have generated billions in gross revenue in California. It’s a dazzling data point that has caught the eyes of some politicians who are unable to resist the covetous urges that arise when they watch commercial enterprises thrive. Electe...
20 March, 2018DOWNLOAD THE PDF California has a deserved reputation for losing businesses to states where companies believe their commercial prospects are more promising. At the same time, businesses that stay are too often reluctant to expand in-state while many ...
19 March, 2018Jared Meyer of the Foundation for Government Accountability joins us to discuss his book on how progressive cities like San Francisco are defending the status quo by fighting innovation and the sharing economy, and gives his thoughts on how policymak...
18 March, 2018Striking the right regulatory balance for pharmaceuticals is no easy task. On the one hand, policy should promote drug affordability by encouraging robust competition. On the other hand, policy should encourage future innovations by granting these dr...
14 March, 2018The Pacific Research Institute has extensively documented California’s public employee pension crisis through a comprehensive study, as well as a collection of op-eds and blog posts. But PRI is not alone. The California Policy Center has been coverin...
13 March, 2018John Kabateck, longtime advocate for NFIB and California’s small businesses, joins us to discuss the results of PRI’s new survey on California’s business climate and explore why highly-coveted industries are still not coming to the Golden State despi...
12 March, 2018We’ve heard it again and again, declarations from California’s progressive politicians on the need to attract “favored” industries to the state. And what are those favored industries? It’s an easy guess — tech, biotech, “clean” manufacturing, e...
09 March, 2018Lawyers recently finished arguing a potentially historic workers’ free speech case before the U.S. Supreme Court and pundits are buzzing about Justice Neil Gorsuch’s silence during the proceedings. However, Gorsuch’s views on individual liberty are ...
08 March, 2018Survey: Biz Execs Down on CA A survey of business executives in highly sought after industries such as clean tech and research & development conclude that California has a number of problems that prevent businesses from locating or expanding in ...
06 March, 2018California lawmakers have made it clear. They want clean tech, R&D, manufacturing, energy, and other highly-desired industries to set up shop in California and create jobs in the Golden. State. Yet, despite introducing legislation offering tax cr...
05 March, 2018The long-term consequences of irresponsible government spending – federal, state, and local – are quickly becoming near-term realities. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the worst of these consequences can still be avoided if politicians and...
01 March, 2018For centuries, America has worked because of free enterprise: Millions of individuals communicate their preferences and producers respond with changes in products, services and prices. Free enterprise operates silently, efficiently and effectively to...
01 March, 2018
New PRI Survey: Housing, Education, Business Climate Top Reasons Why Highly-Desired Industries Aren’t Moving to California Survey Gives Insight into Location Decisions of R&D, Clean Tech, Manufacturing Execs ...
28 February, 2018When it comes to the U.S. health insurance market, the adage about communist economics is apropos. In this instance, instead of being “they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work”, it is “they pretend to sell insurance, we pretend to buy it”. What we....
28 February, 2018The two red-letter days on labor union calendars are May Day and Labor Day. After today, though, February 26 might appear as a black-letter day, marking the downfall of once-mighty organized labor. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in...
26 February, 2018Damon Dunn, former college and pro football player, successful entrepreneur, and former Hoover Institution fellow joins us to discuss his new “Right by the Bay” column, Free Markets 101, where he will make often complex economic trends more understan...
26 February, 2018By Glenn Minnis Despite support from a few Republicans, a measure championed by Sen. Pat Leahy, D-VT, targeting health care costs did not make its way into the budget passed by Congress earlier this month. The exclusion of the Creating and Restoring ...
23 February, 2018This past week, PRI filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court on the closely watched case Cal Fire v. CalPERS and the State of California. In 2012, the legislature passed, and Governor Brown signed into law, the Public Employees’ Pension ...
23 February, 2018Perhaps no area of the world better serves as a reminder of the importance of copyright protections as Southern California. Movie studios, music companies and video game developers make Los Angeles a copyright company town. Such industries are built ...
19 February, 2018PRI's Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden joins us to discuss his new study on the barriers in state licensing laws that hinder the ability of natural disaster victims to get their claims processed quickly, and hurt consumers. H...
19 February, 2018Across the country, state and local pension systems have not amassed enough assets (stocks, bonds, and other financial investments) to cover the retirement benefits promised to current and retired state and local employees. This gap is referred to as...
15 February, 2018When it comes to choosing vendors and making other business decisions, we’ve all had our secret preferences – the tax attorneys who saved our competitors a lot of money, the website developers from our old firm, the office space next to our favorite ...
14 February, 2018Ian Adams of the R Street Institute joins us to talk about the legislative response to California's recent devastating wildfires and the role the free market can play in helping people to rebuild their lives and avoid experiencing a future catastroph...
12 February, 2018By Tracey Walker The 340B Drug Discount program, designed to give discounted prescription drugs to poor Americans, has not been effective in serving its targeted population, according to a new report. The report, “Addressing the Problems of Abuse in ...
12 February, 2018
Generous, taxpayer-funded subsidies for electric car purchases have become just another costly subsidy benefitting the rich, finds a new study released today by the California-based free-market think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. Click here t...
12 February, 2018Watch our new animated video to learn how breaking down barriers in state insurance adjuster licensing could speed up response times for disaster claims and everyday claims, lower costs, and provide job opportunities. It’s based off of Wayne Wi...
12 February, 2018DOWNLOAD THE PDF In Gov. Jerry Brown’s California, all is nearly well. He led off his State of the State address with an assurance that “California is prospering.” He bragged about jobs created and personal income growth on his watch, and congratulat...
07 February, 2018Tech Crunch COO Ned Desmond joins us to discuss the rapid changes in the news business, the fight over so-called fake news, and the future that new online media sources will play in keeping the public informed....
05 February, 2018Just six years after declaring bankruptcy due to a 15-year spending binge, Stockton is now exploring creative new ways of spending again. This time, it’s a one-year experiment to give several dozen Stockton families $500 a month, with no strings att...
05 February, 2018As President Reagan famously noted, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The expanding reach of occupational licensing regulations exemplify this maxim. People in a growing number of o...
01 February, 2018Supply Side Economics works. This isn’t a political statement, nor should it be a particularly controversial one either, unless you believe I am referring to the mythical “trickle down” straw man conjured up by some in the political establishment. By...
01 February, 2018
According to a new study released today, victims of the recent natural disasters in the United States could face long rebuilding delays unless reforms removing insurance marketplace regulatory barriers are adopted to fix a broken system. Click here t...
31 January, 2018Political journalist and Washington Examiner columnist Tom Rogan gives his take on America's foreign policy challenges, what's going on in Trump's Washington, and his new role as moderator in the return of the iconic TV debate program, "The McLaughli...
29 January, 2018
PRI’s Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden discusses the raises that Starbucks employees will be receiving thanks to the Trump Tax Cuts with Aleksandra Michalska of Reuters. ShareTweetPinShare...
25 January, 2018
Just when hundreds of thousands of Californians have begun to enjoy their bonuses and raises thanks to the new tax law, the progressives in Sacramento are working on ways to crush workers’ newfound prosperity. Just last week, Democratic Assemblymen ...
24 January, 2018Kerry Jackson, senior fellow with PRI’s Center for California Reform, joins us to discuss how California’s government anti-poverty programs aren’t delivering, how the private sector can do more to lift people out of poverty, and other findings from h...
15 January, 2018Once again, budget negotiators in Washington D.C. are scrambling to put together a cogent spending plan for the federal government. And, once again, as part of this last-minute scramble, Congress is considering ad-hoc budget gimmicks to pay for spend...
10 January, 2018My fellow blogger Tim Anaya wrote a blog earlier this week on the latest scheme from Sacramento to game the new tax law. Senate Bill 227 would allow taxpayers to make charitable donations to the state and receive a tax credit for the full amount......
10 January, 2018Editor’s Note: Damon Dunn breaks down what are often-confusing economic concepts and makes free market economics more relatable to our everyday lives in his new Right by the Bay column, ‘Free Markets 101’. We are pleased to present his debut column...
09 January, 2018
Brief Says State Policymakers Should Make Pro-Jobs Policies a Priority, And Turn Over More Responsibility to Private Charities That Turn Lives Around...
08 January, 2018After spending the holiday season consulting liberal academics, State Senate Democrats on Thursday unveiled their answer to President Donald Trump’s tax cut law. Calling their proposal an effort to “protect California residents” from the federal tax ...
08 January, 2018An oft-cited survey from 1994 found that one out of every three respondents age 18 and 34 said they were more likely to see a UFO than receive a Social Security check. Fast forward 23 years later — last November, the U.S. reached a record......
05 January, 2018The negative impacts of setting — and increasing — minimum wages should be beyond debate by now. The economic science is settled. Yet California policymakers continue to believe in unicorn economic fantasies. For example, more than a doze...
04 January, 2018Last week, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in an interview that tech companies are already beginning an exodus away from expensive coastal areas such as Silicon Valley and Los Angeles toward more affordable cities in America’s heartland. He said that th...
03 January, 2018By Danielle Paquette Employers nationwide are grappling with a problem that threatens to stall economic growth: vacancies — and lots of them. In Maine, where flurries can fall as late as April, the state transportation department is struggling to fin...
28 December, 2017Looking back on 2017, perhaps the most under-reported story of the year has been President Trump’s success in cutting back regulations. Back in January at the start of his administration, Mr. Trump signed an executive order requiring agencies to cut...
27 December, 2017By Matt D’Angelo The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act aims to spur economic growth across the United States by adjusting tax structures for small businesses and corporations. The bill has officially been passed by both the House of Representatives and the...
20 December, 2017PRI’s Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden joins us to talk about his new study on the 340B program, a well-meaning yet very important government program designed to help the needy afford prescription drugs that, in practice, is b...
18 December, 2017By Stephen Collinson In decades to come, people will talk about the Trump tax cuts as they now reminisce over the Reagan, Bush and Kennedy giveaways. Barring a last-minute cataclysm on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump is set to savor a major tax ...
14 December, 2017Listen to PRI’s Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden discuss the latest developments in the debate over tax reform in Washington with host Tim Farley on the Sirius XM POTUS channel’s “Morning Briefing”. Cli...
14 December, 2017
A new study released today by the Pacific Research Institute finds that a program to give discounted prescription drugs to poor Americans is riddled with abuse, has created a perverse incentive for providers to profit instead of effectively serve the...
13 December, 2017
Much like the old lady who swallowed a fly, the federal government has swallowed a fly over a well-meaning program designed to help the poor afford prescription drugs called 340B. Instead of ensuring the poor have low-cost drugs, 340B has created an ...
13 December, 2017By Jason Margolis “The Word”/Public Radio International In the late 1970s, Ireland’s economy was struggling. So they decided to cut business taxes dramatically while also increasing individual taxes including on the middle class. The idea...
12 December, 2017The most recent estimate says that California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest public employee pension fund in the nation with about 1.8 million beneficiaries, has an unfunded liability of roughly $138 billion with total obligations of...
12 December, 2017Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending the annual California Hall of Fame ceremony. Every year, the Governor presents our state’s highest honor to a group of Californians past and present who have made a lasting contribution to the fabric o...
11 December, 2017If you’re thinking about giving a robot to someone this Christmas, on Amazon.com you’ll find 290,991 choices. I bought my brother a robot for Christmas last year when he announced that he will be retiring from his job as a computer engineer after 35...
07 December, 2017
Over the weekend, I made the rounds of various bipartisan holiday parties filled with California politicos. The late-night vote on the Senate GOP tax plan was certainly the conversation du jour. My liberal friends decried the harried, last-minute na...
06 December, 2017Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Michael Ramirez joins us to discuss his approach to cartooning, some of his favorite and noteworthy cartoons from over the years, and the important role that political cartoons play in shaping publ...
05 December, 2017On Saturday, the Senate joined the House in passing its version of tax reform known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While the two versions are very similar, there are 18 major differences that still need to be discussed between the two chambers in......
05 December, 2017Unions have long had government-protected privileges that no other institution or organization has. They hold monopolies as exclusive collective bargaining units; can collect dues before paychecks are even issued (government is the only other institu...
05 December, 2017On Friday, the Senate achieved the nearly-impossible and passed long-overdue tax reform legislation. While the legislation will surely be changed in the conference committee, whatever final legislation emerges will provide tax relief for many America...
04 December, 2017Wayne Winegarden discusses the Senate vote on tax reform legislation and its impact on California with Larry Mantle on “Air Talk” on Southern California Public Radio/KPCC. Click here to listen to the interview. ShareTweetPinShare...
01 December, 2017We are often critical of the way Gov. Jerry Brown governs and the ideas that he proposes. He too often leans on the progressive playbook. But we’ve not been afraid to say that he’s right when he’s right, and today he’s right. The governor is......
01 December, 2017Skimming 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 treasur...
29 November, 2017
This week, the U.S. Senate is slated to vote on comprehensive tax reform. But some fiscal hawks are worried about the bill’s impact on the deficit. In the short term, these lawmakers are right to worry. Contrary to the analyses of some optimist...
29 November, 2017Washington D.C.’s city government is nationally known for its anti-business bias. A law enacted late last year and scheduled to take effect on New Year’s Day 2018 shows why. The ordinance regulates the labeling of — hold onto your seat — moist flusha...
28 November, 2017Click here to download the brief Nerves are apparently raw in union halls across California. Labor leaders are waiting in dread over a coming Supreme Court ruling. The decision could cost them members, and more importantly to the union bosses, money....
28 November, 2017The California Legislative Analyst’s Office is projecting a $19 billion budget surplus for the 2018-19 fiscal year which begins next July 1. The media wonder if lawmakers should spend it or save it. There’s a third option, though, that is going unmen...
21 November, 2017PRI’s Wayne Winegarden talks with Pimm Fox and Lisa Abramowicz of Bloomberg Radio about the latest developments with the GOP tax plan, whether cutting corporate taxes stimulates economic growth, and the effort to repeal the individual mandate a...
17 November, 2017Tax reform has taken center stage in Washington. Just last week, the House Ways and Means Committee approved the House’s tax reform proposal, while the Senate released its own tax reform proposal. If you picked up a newspaper in California, you would...
16 November, 2017As he celebrated Democrats’ November election wins, California’s overwrought Tom Steyer took a moment to sound a bit like someone from the other party — before he reverted back to form. “When we think about what a more prosperous, healthy...
15 November, 2017By Jeff Ostrowski If there’s one thing that’s certain to mobilize the nation’s largest trade group, it’s any talk of reining in tax breaks for homeowners with mortgages. House Republicans on Thursday passed a tax plan that caps at $500,000 the amount...
15 November, 2017Economist John Tamny of RealClearMarkets and Forbes.com joins us to talk about the ongoing battle over the national debt, the debate over monetary policy and tax reform under President Trump, the future of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, and his upcomin...
14 November, 2017
Listen to Wayne Winegarden, Senior Fellow in Business & Economics at the Pacific Research Institute, talk with Libertarian Party Chairman Nicholas Sarwark about the big things tripping up the tax reform debate on Sirius XM “Patriot Tonight...
09 November, 2017The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act aims to spur economic growth across the United States by adjusting tax structures for small businesses and corporations. Though the bill is still being debated, amended and adjusted, if it passes, it may have serious implica...
09 November, 2017With the release of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the long-awaited tax bill has been released. The most pro-growth aspects would change the U.S. corporate income tax system. Corporate income taxes have become a large economic disincentive against...
08 November, 2017
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the new legislation introduced by the House last week, would create nearly one million new jobs and increase gross domestic product by 3.9 percent, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. The bill cuts...
08 November, 2017The clock is ticking for trucking companies in the U.S. to comply with a federal mandate requiring drivers to stop logging their hours on the road with paper logs and switch to electronic logging devices (ELD) – and not everyone is happy about the ch...
07 November, 2017Clark Judge is the chairman of the Pacific Research Institute, founder of The White House Writers Group and a former Reagan speechwriter. He joins us to discuss President Trump’s communications style, his effectiveness in advocating for his agenda, ...
06 November, 2017When I was a junior speechwriter working in Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration, one of the great pleasures I had was working with and getting to know David Crane. David was the Governor’s advisor on economic issues and his office was right nex...
03 November, 2017This week, Republicans are preparing to unveil the details of a tax reform proposal that would deliver tax relief to individuals and businesses, as well as simplify the tax filing process. How to “pay for” the tax cuts will be the big debate in the.....
31 October, 2017
A clean energy advocate in the California Legislature wants internal combustion vehicles to sputter out of existence on the state’s roads and highways. “The cars that we drive today are based on technology that’s 100 years old,” said Assembly member ...
31 October, 2017David Crane of Govern for California and Stanford University talks about California’s public pension crisis, how more public money spent on pensions takes away funding for key state priorities, and how we can break through the logjam to enact meaning...
30 October, 2017Everyone wants a piece of Amazon. A city in Georgia has even offered to rename itself “Amazon” if only the web sales giant would locate its second headquarters there. Jerry Brown is making a pitch, too. The governor, according to the Mercury News, “i...
27 October, 2017It’s “Basic Economics” that residential rent control is harmful housing policy. So it makes perfect sense that we’re beginning to hear about commercial rent control in California. Why not heap more destructive laws on the pile? San Jose Inside report...
26 October, 2017Northern California is a hotbed of modern, global technological innovation, particularly internet innovation. Yet, increasingly Washington, D.C. dictates the direction and velocity of innovation, often abetted by the very companies that gained from t...
24 October, 2017Bartlett Cleland, PRI’s senior fellow in Tech and Innovation, talks with us about whether California’s innovation luster is wearing off, how poor government policy is impacting the sharing economy, autonomous vehicles, and innovation companies, and t...
23 October, 2017From California to Washington D.C. legislators continue to confirm Abraham Kaplan’s famous insight that if you, “give a small boy a hammer, he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.” In the case of our legislators, that hammer is pri...
17 October, 2017California Manufacturing and Technology Association President Dorothy Rothrock joins us to discuss the state of manufacturing in California today and how this year’s legislative session will impact manufacturers, and what can be done to bring back ma...
16 October, 2017We’ve all heard the negative economic and budget stories coming out of Sacramento in recent years. But as a Connecticut native, the headlines coming out of my home state are equally concerning, and offer a lesson for Golden State policymakers. Conne...
13 October, 2017David Crane of Govern for California discusses California’s public pension time bomb at a PRI Young Leaders Circle meeting in San Francisco. ShareTweetPinShare...
12 October, 2017Abraham Kaplan famously noted that if you, “give a small boy a hammer, he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.” Put differently, solving problems requires the right tool, not the convenient tool. Congress should remember this wisdo...
12 October, 2017
Fox News contributor and National Review contributing editor Deroy Murdock joins us to discuss America’s growing debt problem, the upcoming debt ceiling vote, and how Washington’s out-of-control spending priorities hurt our economy and threaten our l...
10 October, 2017The U.S. health care system needs systemic reforms that comprehensively address the problems of declining quality and rising costs. Alas, beneficial systemic reforms will not be implemented any time soon. There are still opportunities for Congress to...
10 October, 2017
Washington D.C. has turned its sights on tax reform. Critics, almost reflexively, oppose the effort based on claims that tax reform will increase the deficit. A little perspective is in order, consequently. The chart below presents data on total fede...
04 October, 2017Columnist and longtime political observer Steven Greenhut of the R Street Institute gives his thoughts on the housing package, the cap-and-trade deal, bills that were overlooked, and the impact of Prop. 54 in Part 2 of our 2017 end-of-session wrap-up...
02 October, 2017One of the many flaws with our current health care system is that, too often, health insurance coverage fails people precisely when they need it the most. It’s as if your car insurance has been paying the cost for your oil changes for years, but......
28 September, 2017Recently, Gilbert Hyatt presented his side of a tax dispute case to the voter-elected Board of Equalization. The state has been pursuing Mr. Hyatt for 26 years, alleging that he owes millions in back taxes and penalties from capital gains from a comp...
27 September, 2017Imagine a pharmaceutical market designed by Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter. In contrast to almost every other market, he might begin by charging wholesale prices that are higher than retail prices. He would then make sure that the higher wholesale price ...
20 September, 2017Every weekend, I like to listen to the Car Pro guys on the radio when I’m driving around town. In case you’ve never heard the show, the Car Pro – whose real name is Jerry Reynolds – is a former big-time car dealer in Texas.......
20 September, 2017Late last month, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta challenged state legislators to abolish one of the most noxious barriers to work: occupational licensing. If Sacramento lawmakers followed through, hundreds of thousands of Californians would be ...
19 September, 2017PRI’s Senior Fellow in Business and Economics Wayne Winegarden joins us to explore how various tax reform ideas could impact the tax burdens of Californians. He also discusses his study on how to move America’s economy “Beyond The New Normal” of low...
18 September, 2017T.J. Rodgers, formerly the outspoken CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, once warned that the tech industry should not “normalize relations with Washington, D.C.” He wrote, “A normalized relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley ...
15 September, 2017It seems that Seattle is no longer evergreen for Amazon. Last week, the company announced that it’s on the hunt for a second headquarters. There wasn’t a clear explanation for why the online retail giant is seeking a new habitat. But even climate cha...
14 September, 2017Effective health care reforms must reduce the excessive costs imposed by frivolous lawsuits. Studies have shown that medical tort reform could reduce total health care premiums between 1 and 3 percent. As estimated by the American Action Forum, this ...
13 September, 2017Recently, a friend of mine told me how much she and her husband enjoyed subscribing to a home meal prep delivery service. Instead of having to go to the grocery story, they deliver all the fresh ingredients you need to make a gourmet recipe right......
13 September, 2017President Trump just rescinded an Obama administration policy aimed at closing the economic gap between men and women. The measure would have required companies to collect data on pay differences between genders and races. It’s tempting to see ...
12 September, 2017CNN contributor and noted free-market economist Steve Moore joins us to talk about the Trump effect on the U.S. economy, and what the prospects look like for achieving tax reform and federal spending cuts this year....
11 September, 2017A California governor who went on to greater things was known to say that if government sees something move, it will tax it. Ronald Reagan’s words, spoken more than 30 years ago, are being played out today by a lawmaker who wants to enact a......
07 September, 2017Tax hikes, especially in the state known for its extraordinarily heavy tax burden, should not be easily enacted. Yet the California Supreme Court has made the job much easier. California law previously required a two-thirds majority for the passage o...
01 September, 2017The other day, a freshman from Santa Clara University called me to inquire about internships at PRI. She had just heard Sally Pipes give a talk on health care. She was also familiar with the work of Arthur Laffer. As an economics student, she thought...
01 September, 2017For the 30 nations that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which promotes policies to improve the well-being of people around the world, pharmaceutical spending comprised, on average, 16.9 percent of total heal...
30 August, 2017California’s $100,000 Club has grown to an all-time high. And it’s not a particularly exclusive institution. This one has more than 61,000 members, all of them retired government employees, raking in pension benefits many in the private sector would ...
24 August, 2017There is little doubt that the U.S. needs comprehensive tax reform. The corporate income tax system is globally uncompetitive; the personal income tax system is so complicated that even the IRS can’t answer taxpayers’ questions. The right reform impl...
24 August, 2017Californians harboring dystopian fears would have us believe that the state is sowing the seeds of its own destruction by leading in the development of artificial intelligence. Consider state legislation introduced this year that would fine companies...
23 August, 2017The drama of “repeal and replace” resembled an unfunny version of a Monty Python skit, continuously claiming that it was “not dead yet”, and even that it was “getting better” only to be put out of its misery in the end. The end of repeal......
31 July, 2017California is called earthquake country for good reason. There are nearly 2,000 known fault lines crisscrossing the state, and scientists continue to discover new fault lines all the time. Nearly every Californian lives within 30 miles of an active f...
28 July, 2017Disincentives plague the U.S. health care system, driving costs higher and the quality of care lower. Improving health outcomes requires reforms that remove these disincentives. With respect to health insurers, this means returning payers to their pr...
26 July, 2017Joe Quirk of the Seasteading Institute joins us in San Francisco to talk about the audacious vision of building floating cities, where everyone is creative, prosperous and free. Ben Smithwick also joins us to talk about PRI’s Young Leaders Circle....
25 July, 2017
For Samsung, it was the Galaxy Note 7; for Microsoft, it was the Zune; and for Coke, it was New Coke. These famous flops exemplify that failures are a part of life – even for multi-billion-dollar companies. In the private sector, successful companies...
19 July, 2017
Californians would face $1.9 billion in higher insurance costs if Congress passes a border adjustment tax as part of federal tax reform, according to a new study released today by the R Street Institute and the Pacific Research Institute. This tax wo...
12 July, 2017Anyone 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 governm...
07 July, 2017By some measures, the competition among the states to attract business and new residents has never been more robust. With easier and less expensive travel options, increasingly ubiquitous high-speed broadband and more flexible work conditions, compan...
30 June, 2017If you believe the civil engineers, then on top of current planned expenditures, the U.S. needs an additional $5.2 trillion in investment into the nation’s roads, water systems, electric grids, ports & waterways, and airports between now and 204...
29 June, 2017The average credit card debt in 2016 was $16,048 per household that carries a balance. Paying off this debt is an important financial goal. Obviously, this beneficial goal would be more difficult to meet if the Legislature imposed arbitrary restricti...
23 June, 2017They 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...
20 June, 2017Big government policies and political constraints are the primary causes for rising California home prices and lack of supply, according to the findings of a new “California Ideas in Action” issue brief released today by the non-partisan Pacific Rese...
14 June, 2017Cultures from biblical times to the ancient Chinese have all expressed some form of the wisdom that the best form of charity is to prevent poverty in the first place. This wisdom is lacking today, particularly with respect to the U.S. health care sec...
13 June, 201710-years of economic stagnation has taken its toll on Puerto Rico. Unemployment is skyrocketing, infrastructure is degrading, and the exodus away from the island is accelerating. Structural reforms that will stabilize the financial crisis in the shor...
08 June, 2017Tweaks do not turn bad regulatory proposals into good ones. Yet, with only minor modifications, Congress is once again considering the CREATES Act (Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples Act of 2017), and its close cousin, the FAST...
06 June, 2017As Milton Friedman famously noted, there are four ways to spend money; the fourth being spending somebody else’s money on somebody else. And, when people spend money this way, they tend to disregard both the costs and the outcomes. Simply put, people...
30 May, 2017Three problems, exemplified by the crises afflicting the public pension systems in Houston and Dallas, plague state and local pension systems across the country. First, state and local governments have only contributed 88 percent of the required annu...
26 May, 2017No 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 ...
24 May, 2017
Download the Brief Nearly half of California isn’t actually California. It’s an extension of Washington, D.C. Almost 46 percent of the state’s land mass is owned by the federal government, according to the Congressional Research Service. This means b...
22 May, 2017In a unanimous and bipartisan vote, Arizona’s legislature passed the Free Speech in Medicine Act, which was signed into law about two months ago. Passing anything with bipartisan support is noteworthy in today’s hyper-partisan environment. Passing a ...
17 May, 2017
It’s easy for politicians and consumers to rage about the high price of prescription drugs, but Wayne Winegarden, Pacific Research Institute’s senior fellow in business and economics, said those prices are not to blame for the high cost of healthcare...
16 May, 2017Due to inefficiencies in the current regulatory framework, pharmacy benefit managers can add cost to the healthcare system and impose burdens on both consumers and market competition, according to a new study released by the Pacific Research Institut...
16 May, 2017Governments tend to target innovative industries that are too new to be regulated and single them out for punitive taxes and nasty abuse. As Art Laffer once put it, governments aren’t happy when business pioneers enjoy “success without the benevolent...
12 May, 2017An obscure institute that most people have never heard of threatens to impose unwarranted restrictions on medically-advised treatments for patients. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER as it is commonly known, assesses whether med...
11 May, 2017Click here to read PRI’s new issue brief, The Economic Costs of Pharmacy Benefit Managers Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) in the nation, is discovering just how much customer service matters. It may also be discoveri...
09 May, 2017California has a grim housing problem and nearly everyone in the state, whether they have tried to buy or rent a home or not, is aware of it. Apparently, though, some in Sacramento haven’t noticed and hope to mix in more of the poison that......
30 April, 2017
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 c...
27 April, 2017The growing problem of health care affordability requires prompt and effective policy solutions. However, just as the wrong medical diagnosis will not cure a patient, and may make the patient even sicker, the wrong policy solution will not address th...
27 April, 2017A more realistic evaluation of U.S. prescription drug prices shows that high drug prices are not actually driving up health care costs overall, and reflect the higher U.S. health care costs compared to the rest of the world, according to a new report...
25 April, 2017America’s economy can return to the days of 3 percent and higher annual growth rates if Washington embraces pro-growth economic policies, concludes the latest installment of Pacific Research Institute’s Beyond the New Normal series released today. “N...
19 April, 2017Sound judgment, which is too rare in the halls of California officialdom, won a round on Tuesday when the state’s Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that San Diego’s pension cutbacks for city workers were indeed lawful. The case was the appeal of ...
17 April, 2017This 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 almo...
07 April, 2017The “Golden Skirts,” Norway’s New Quota QueeI can’t think of too many items I use that are manufactured in Norway, though perhaps some of their seafood finds its way to San Francisco restaurants. The Scandinavian nation, howev...
06 April, 2017PRI’s Wayne Winegarden talks about President Trump’s executive action to repeal the Clean Power Plan with Todd Zwillich on “The Takeaway.” Click here to listen to the interview. Last year, PRI released “The Clean Power P...
28 March, 2017In a flurry of activity during its waning hours, the Obama administration hastily approved far too many ill-conceived regulations that will affect the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Americans. In this rush to regulate, the outgoing administr...
24 March, 2017Download the Brief Click here to watch PRI’s panel discussion on California’s housing crisis from the State Capitol in Sacramento. The most unaffordable city in the world in which to rent a home is not New York or Tokyo or Hong Kong. The ...
24 March, 2017Despite the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate increase last week, interest rates remain low by historical standards. While rising interest rates are an indication that the economic outlook is improving, the slow climb back to normal rates is a s...
22 March, 2017California’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. Produ...
22 March, 2017
California leads the nation in manufacturing jobs with nearly 1.3 million. But this doesn’t mean all’s well with manufacturing in the state. Job growth in the sector is miserable. We rank 24th in growth out of the 32 states that have more than 100,00...
10 March, 2017Imagine if you never had to directly pay for your morning cup of coffee again. Instead, a coffee insurer guaranteed that, for a small co-pay, you could enjoy a cup of coffee every morning. Sounds good? The catch, and there is always a catch, is......
07 March, 2017Click here to read Part 1 of the New Normal series Click here to read Part 2 of the New Normal series Click here to read Part 3 of the New Normal series For too long, our economy has been growing unnecessarily slow. Since 2000,......
03 March, 2017
PRI Study Proposes New Look at Impact of Government Policy on Nation’s Long-Term Economic Problems The Pacific Research Institute today released the latest installment of its Beyond the New Normal series, proposing a reorganization of current economi...
01 March, 2017Download the Brief Sacramento’s response to President Trump’s Inauguration Day was to release the latest version of its heavy-handed plan to stop global warming. The state’s updated approach to environmental policy will be about as effective in stopp...
21 February, 2017
Does More Government Spending Boost the Economy? New PRI Study Finds Overspending Doesn’t Create Jobs, Takes Away Investment in Private-Sector Also published in Utah Standard News Challenging the status quo thinking that more government spending boos...
03 February, 2017Click here to read part 1 of “Beyond the New Normal” by Wayne Winegarden and Niles Chura For more than a decade federal policy has re-shaped the economy through a variety of activist policies. Taxes have risen, spending has increased, and...
26 January, 2017President Trump’s extraordinary Inaugural Address was at once familiar and surprising, combining echoes from a forgotten past with notes that are entirely new. The echoes were to a president who was viewed with as much alarm by the official Washingto...
23 January, 2017In his first Inaugural Address, President Andrew Jackson said that the election that brought him to office “inscribes on the list of Executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of ‘reform.’” With this election, ...
20 January, 2017Countering the narrative that slow economic growth is “the new normal” for America’s economy, the Pacific Research Institute today released the first in a series of reports from its new study, Beyond the New Normal, which makes the case that future U...
18 January, 2017Countering the narrative that slow economic growth is “the new normal” for America’s economy, the Pacific Research Institute today released the first in a series of reports from its new study, Beyond the New Normal, which makes the case that future U...
18 January, 2017Gov. Jerry Brown released his budget Tuesday amid what the media called an “uncertainty” in Washington that will could an effect on the state’s finances. The fear is that the Republican White House and Congress will punish California for its politica...
13 January, 2017Last month, the Army Corps of Engineers, pursuant to political pressure, reversed its prior decision and denied the final permit needed to complete construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pretext: that the pipeline company, after years of pla...
12 January, 2017
Download the Brief California is destined for yet another energy crisis, which, like the drought that’s been scorching the state, will be man-made. Shortages can be avoided, but that will require lawmakers to think in ways that few have engaged in in...
10 January, 2017The imminent repeal of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is garnering most of the health care headlines, and rightly so. But, the focus on Obamacare should not overshadow other health care modifications that may be considered during the 115th C...
05 January, 2017Type “California housing crisis” into a web search engine and the results come gushing out. Dozens of stories from just the past year highlight a crunch that’s “way past a problem,” a “middle-class” disaster, “drowning renters” and “California’s most...
01 January, 2017More and more Oklahomans today are living in energy poverty.Energy poverty is defined as spending more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs. More than half of those surveyed in a 2011 poll said ...
31 December, 2016The deaths of two patients at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in early 2015 were blamed in part on a drug-resistant superbug. Two years earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that a “nightmare” was coming in the form ...
19 December, 2016Cutting wasteful government spending would be much easier if it were properly labeled. But, wasteful expenditures are never properly categorized as duplicitous, unnecessary, or unwarranted spending. Instead, wasteful government expenditures masquerad...
19 December, 2016Donald Trump hasn’t wasted time moving to revive America’s economic growth, with an emphasis on manufacturing. Critics may say the recent Carrier deal, which will save 800 American jobs, is small potatoes, but Mr. Trump’s pledge to reduce regulation ...
18 December, 2016
Read the Magazine This edition of IMPACT includes a special feature on our new study The Clean Power Plan’s Economic Impact by PRI Senior Fellow Dr. Wayne Winegarden – released on November 1st. This important study confirms that big federal governmen...
05 December, 2016San Diego, California lawmakers are appealing a ruling by the state’s labor relations board that rolls back pension entitlement reforms approved by voters four years ago. The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) ruled in December 2015 ...
02 December, 2016Energy poverty is on the rise across Arizona today. If you spend more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs, then you are afflicted by energy poverty. It is a tragedy that forces some families to...
18 November, 2016If you spend more than 10 percent of your income on electricity, natural gas, and other household energy costs, then you are afflicted by energy poverty. It is a tragedy that forces some families to choose between keeping the lights on, or putting fo...