Business & Economics

Letter to the Editor Re: Bill Stall, “Even Reagan Raised Taxes,” Opinion, Feb. 26 Stall needs a history lesson. In 1991, facing an inherited $14.3-billion budget deficit, Wilson and state legislators agreed to raise taxes by $7.2 billion. Politicians assumed that hikes would increase long-run tax revenues, thereby closing the ...

The cause of freedom suffered an irreplaceable loss when National Review founder and intellectual decathlete William F. Buckley passed away at 82 on February 27. Mr. Buckley’s prodigious accomplishments are well known to PRI supporters, and in December, 2000, he teamed with Milton Friedman as keynote speaker for PRI’s gala ...

SACRAMENTO – On February 16, Governor Schwarzenegger approved the California legislature’s plan to deal with the “fiscal emergency” that the governor declared on January 10, two days after he said that the “budget wolf” that California had managed to avoid for two years was now back at the door. The ...

“For several years, we kept the budget wolf from the door,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his State of the State Address. “But the wolf is back.” Two days after this speech — January 10 — the governor declared a “fiscal emergency,” forcing the legislature to develop a plan within ...

This week marked the anniversary of the announcement that the satellite radio firms Sirius and XM plan to merge, yet so far the companies have not been allowed to consummate the marriage. That’s because regulators are standing in the way, backed by well-heeled Washington lobbyists out to prove that ridiculous ...

THE $4 BILLION merger of satellite radio companies Sirius and XM continues to languish in the hands of government regulators, despite hopes that the 10-month antitrust investigation wouldn’t drag into 2008. An otherwise clear-cut approval process has been hijacked by competitors seeking to prevent consumers from receiving better service, more ...

“Purblind Auction” (Review & Outlook, Feb. 7) incorrectly describes wireless spectrum as “real estate.” The government may be selling these choice airwaves to the highest bidder, but who really owns them? Certainly not the auction winner. Not only do the FCC’s rules dictate how the new “owner” can use his ...

There are some in government intent on improving what already works just fine, often to the detriment of nearly everyone. The latest unnecessary fix of what’s not broken is a preposterous, counter-productive, exorbitantly expensive proposal to use state-issued bonds to bring ultra-fast Internet connections to every remote California nook and ...