Campaign Will Show What U.S. Could Face if California Progressive Agenda Goes National
SACRAMENTO – With California recently declared by the Los Angeles Times as “the de-facto policy think tank of the Biden-Harris Administration,” the Pacific Research Institute – California’s leading free-market think tank – today launched a “Been There, Done That” campaign to educate Americans about the negative consequences facing them if the California progressive agenda spreads nationwide.
“While liberals in Sacramento and Washington cheer the Golden State’s progressive experiment, the real-life results betray that California has become one of the least appealing places to raise a family, start a business, or call home,” said Sally Pipes, PRI President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy.
Founded in San Francisco in 1979 and calling California home for more than forty years, the Pacific Research Institute has had a front row seat as Sacramento has shifted away from free markets and toward more government control. PRI scholars have researched and written extensively on these misguided policies, including limits on worker freedom, expensive renewable energy mandates, costly government-run health care schemes, and restrictive policy regimes that are reducing innovation in technology and health care.
“The Biden administration and other states are taking notice of what’s going on in the once-Golden State. Unfortunately, they’re being inspired by California’s policy mistakes to advance these policies nationally,” said Pipes. “Our ‘Been There, Done That’ campaign will warn Americans what they could face if these misguided ideas are enacted by Congress or other states – higher costs, higher taxes, fewer choices, more restrictions and less freedom.”
The campaign launched today with a new microsite – www.pacificresearch.org/BeenThereDoneThat – which will be a one-stop resource featuring PRI’s research and real-life examples of how Americans would be negatively impacted if progressive agenda proposals that originated in California are enacted.
PRI will also release regular updates offering its research and analysis to the debate over Biden policies influenced by California.
Click here to read the first update, which shows that California’s renewable energy mandates – which the Biden administration wants to emulate – have raised energy costs, aren’t as effective in lowering emissions, and threaten power blackouts for the second year in a row.
The “Been There, Done That” campaign will leverage PRI’s years of California policy research to fill a void in the national debate – real life examples of how these ideas being exported to Washington have negatively impacted Californians.
