Business & Economics
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Spending Watch
Spending Watch: Newsom’s Final Budget Defers the Difficult Budget Decisions to California’s Next Governor
Newsom’s Final Budget Defers the Difficult Budget Decisions to California’s Next Governor Wayne Winegarden July 2026 The FY2026-27 Budget Basics Gov. Newsom has signed the FY2026-27 budget – Newsom’s final one as governor. He claims the budget “prioritizes fiscal restraint” and promotes “long-term sustainability,” but the numbers tell a different ...
Wayne H Winegarden
July 7, 2026
Blog
The Gordon Chang Report–China’s Regime Is No Match for Defiant Christians
READ THE PDF China’s Regime Is No Match for Defiant Christians Dozens of police and state security officers—up to 70 of them according to parishioners—raided the Early Rain Covenant Church in the southwestern Chinese city of Jiangyou on June 14. The police, some wearing body armor marked “SWAT,” eventually took ...
Gordon Chang
July 6, 2026
Agriculture
Fourth of July cookouts cost a little more this year
There are regional cost differences from the AFBF data, highlighting how different areas of the country have different living expenses. For a 10-person meal, the least expensive place to spend the holiday is in the Northeast, where you’ll pay an average of $71.35 for groceries. The Midwest comes in a ...
Pam Lewison
July 3, 2026
Blog
Indiana’s Bears play could put taxpayers behind an $8 billion franchise
Illinois has plenty of problems. Its tax system is complicated, its approval process is slow, and its politics made the Arlington Heights path harder than it needed to be. In this case, though, Illinois not rushing into a special deal for the Bears was not the main policy failure. Indiana ...
Anthony Velasquez
June 25, 2026
Blog
California’s Regulatory Blob
On the surface, it might appear to be minor. Nothing too big. But from seemingly insignificant rules come sweeping, burdensome regulatory frameworks. The plan is to only outlaw a particular type of automobile tire for fuel economy purposes, but it sets up regulators to police anything they wish to, from engine displacement ...
Kerry Jackson
June 23, 2026
Blog
Is There A Limit To The Abuse California Businesses Will Tolerate?
This isn’t the sort of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but the type of insanity that doesn’t care what the outcome is. California’s Cartwright Act is the state’s primary antitrust law. It allows both government and private actors to make antitrust claims against businesses. A California Supreme ...
Kerry Jackson
June 9, 2026
Blog
The Gordon Chang Report–Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’?
READ THE PDF Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’? “We were already in Cold War 2.0 with China,” Charles Payne, the Fox Business anchor, told Jesse Watters, immediately after President Donald Trump’s Beijing summit in May. “I think it’s thawing out tremendously. I don’t think a lot of ...
Gordon Chang
June 8, 2026
Blog
A public bank in California would be costly, risky and unnecessary
But lawmakers were pushing forward anyway. AB 2243 would have established a taxpayer-funded commission to study the feasibility of a public bank and how it could act “as an additional financial tool to lower borrowing costs, strengthen local lending partnerships and help finance urgent public needs like affordable housing, infrastructure, ...
Matthew Fleming
June 3, 2026
AI
Big Tech Lost in Monterey Park. California’s First Data Center Ban Is a Warning
I grew up in Monterey Park, attending both middle school and high school there. The Monterey Park I know is a small, family-centered community where people go to the park, kids go trick-or-treating, and youth sports are full of life. It has been recognized as one of America’s best places ...
Anthony Velasquez
June 2, 2026
Blog
California’s ‘Scarcity Mindset’
The late, great comedian Sam Kinison once said that instead of sending food to starving nations, we should send U-Hauls because, he would scream, “there wouldn’t be world hunger if you people would live where the food is! You live in a desert, understand that?! Nothing grows out of here!” ...
John Merline and Kerry Jackson
May 27, 2026
Spending Watch
Spending Watch: Newsom’s Final Budget Defers the Difficult Budget Decisions to California’s Next Governor
Newsom’s Final Budget Defers the Difficult Budget Decisions to California’s Next Governor Wayne Winegarden July 2026 The FY2026-27 Budget Basics Gov. Newsom has signed the FY2026-27 budget – Newsom’s final one as governor. He claims the budget “prioritizes fiscal restraint” and promotes “long-term sustainability,” but the numbers tell a different ...
The Gordon Chang Report–China’s Regime Is No Match for Defiant Christians
READ THE PDF China’s Regime Is No Match for Defiant Christians Dozens of police and state security officers—up to 70 of them according to parishioners—raided the Early Rain Covenant Church in the southwestern Chinese city of Jiangyou on June 14. The police, some wearing body armor marked “SWAT,” eventually took ...
Fourth of July cookouts cost a little more this year
There are regional cost differences from the AFBF data, highlighting how different areas of the country have different living expenses. For a 10-person meal, the least expensive place to spend the holiday is in the Northeast, where you’ll pay an average of $71.35 for groceries. The Midwest comes in a ...
Indiana’s Bears play could put taxpayers behind an $8 billion franchise
Illinois has plenty of problems. Its tax system is complicated, its approval process is slow, and its politics made the Arlington Heights path harder than it needed to be. In this case, though, Illinois not rushing into a special deal for the Bears was not the main policy failure. Indiana ...
California’s Regulatory Blob
On the surface, it might appear to be minor. Nothing too big. But from seemingly insignificant rules come sweeping, burdensome regulatory frameworks. The plan is to only outlaw a particular type of automobile tire for fuel economy purposes, but it sets up regulators to police anything they wish to, from engine displacement ...
Is There A Limit To The Abuse California Businesses Will Tolerate?
This isn’t the sort of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but the type of insanity that doesn’t care what the outcome is. California’s Cartwright Act is the state’s primary antitrust law. It allows both government and private actors to make antitrust claims against businesses. A California Supreme ...
The Gordon Chang Report–Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’?
READ THE PDF Trump and Xi: Is This ‘Reagan-Gorbachev No. 2’? “We were already in Cold War 2.0 with China,” Charles Payne, the Fox Business anchor, told Jesse Watters, immediately after President Donald Trump’s Beijing summit in May. “I think it’s thawing out tremendously. I don’t think a lot of ...
A public bank in California would be costly, risky and unnecessary
But lawmakers were pushing forward anyway. AB 2243 would have established a taxpayer-funded commission to study the feasibility of a public bank and how it could act “as an additional financial tool to lower borrowing costs, strengthen local lending partnerships and help finance urgent public needs like affordable housing, infrastructure, ...
Big Tech Lost in Monterey Park. California’s First Data Center Ban Is a Warning
I grew up in Monterey Park, attending both middle school and high school there. The Monterey Park I know is a small, family-centered community where people go to the park, kids go trick-or-treating, and youth sports are full of life. It has been recognized as one of America’s best places ...
California’s ‘Scarcity Mindset’
The late, great comedian Sam Kinison once said that instead of sending food to starving nations, we should send U-Hauls because, he would scream, “there wouldn’t be world hunger if you people would live where the food is! You live in a desert, understand that?! Nothing grows out of here!” ...