California
California
PRI On NPR: California Created Its Budget Woes
Winegarden joins Insight with his perspective on the state’s fiscal priorities and budget challenges. Listen to the entire interview here.
California
Wayne Winegarden – Analyzing the 2025 May Revise
PRI senior fellow in business and economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden joins us with his initial analysis of Gov. Newsom’s May Revise budget proposal. Wayne shares his thoughts on Gov. Newsom’s plan to close the state’s $12 billion budget deficit, including controversial plans to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to the undocumented and ...
Blog
More Rent Control Makes Things Worse
Rent control is the bad penny legislation that keeps turning up in California. It is widely regarded as crummy economic policy by economists, it ultimately leads to rental shortages and higher rents and it is based on the faulty idea that private property is somehow public property. And yet, here ...
Blog
Spending Watch
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much Wayne Winegarden and Nikhil Agarwal May 2025 As we noted in an earlier Spending Watch piece, growing economic volatility will likely cause revenue growth to be much weaker than expected for the upcoming FY2025-26 budget. It is, consequently, fiscally irresponsible for ...
California
From bloated budgets, to wasteful spending: Why California needs its own DOGE
If any government were in desperate need of a DOGE effort, it’s California. The bloated budget, wasteful public works projects and inefficient government programs are all screaming for attention. The federal Department of Government Efficiency has become famous — and certainly infamous in some minds — for its efforts to ...
Blog
Newsom Gets One Right on State Return to Office Order
Virtually every other state and most private sector employers in California and nationally returned to normal employment arrangements years ago. A February Bay Area Council survey showed 84 percent of private sector employers have already implemented long-term in-person work policies, and just 6 person of employers do not require employees ...
California
No way to run a homeless program
Last year’s count of the homeless population in both Los Angeles County and City showed a slight decrease, which is a small measure of progress. But the findings of recent audit of city-funded homelessness assistance programs suggests changes are needed in the local response if there is to be a ...
Blog
Read about the latest bill to weaken CA's public safety laws
AB 622 – Early Release for Violent Offenders
Historically, an inmate serving a 25 to life sentence for murder is eligible for parole review 13 months prior to their 25th year in custody, adjusted for time in custody prior to sentencing. This is known as the Minimum Parole Eligibility Date (MEPD). After the passage of Prop 57, the ...
California
Ben Austin – Can Sacramento Actually Fix California’s Underperforming Public Schools?
Ben Austin, longtime politico who has worked in both Democrat and Republican administrations in California and Washington, DC and now founding director of Education Civil Rights Now – a national non-profit with the mission of establishing a constitutional right to a high-quality public education for all students – joins PRI’s ...
Blog
Newsom’s Diaper Plan Stinks
Why a new program when the old one is working ok? The state argues that there are gaps in the existing program, which targets low-income parents. Instead of simply filling the gaps, the state wants to impose some elaborate scheme that is akin to killing a gnat with a shotgun. ...
PRI On NPR: California Created Its Budget Woes
Winegarden joins Insight with his perspective on the state’s fiscal priorities and budget challenges. Listen to the entire interview here.
Wayne Winegarden – Analyzing the 2025 May Revise
PRI senior fellow in business and economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden joins us with his initial analysis of Gov. Newsom’s May Revise budget proposal. Wayne shares his thoughts on Gov. Newsom’s plan to close the state’s $12 billion budget deficit, including controversial plans to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to the undocumented and ...
More Rent Control Makes Things Worse
Rent control is the bad penny legislation that keeps turning up in California. It is widely regarded as crummy economic policy by economists, it ultimately leads to rental shortages and higher rents and it is based on the faulty idea that private property is somehow public property. And yet, here ...
Spending Watch
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much Wayne Winegarden and Nikhil Agarwal May 2025 As we noted in an earlier Spending Watch piece, growing economic volatility will likely cause revenue growth to be much weaker than expected for the upcoming FY2025-26 budget. It is, consequently, fiscally irresponsible for ...
From bloated budgets, to wasteful spending: Why California needs its own DOGE
If any government were in desperate need of a DOGE effort, it’s California. The bloated budget, wasteful public works projects and inefficient government programs are all screaming for attention. The federal Department of Government Efficiency has become famous — and certainly infamous in some minds — for its efforts to ...
Newsom Gets One Right on State Return to Office Order
Virtually every other state and most private sector employers in California and nationally returned to normal employment arrangements years ago. A February Bay Area Council survey showed 84 percent of private sector employers have already implemented long-term in-person work policies, and just 6 person of employers do not require employees ...
No way to run a homeless program
Last year’s count of the homeless population in both Los Angeles County and City showed a slight decrease, which is a small measure of progress. But the findings of recent audit of city-funded homelessness assistance programs suggests changes are needed in the local response if there is to be a ...
Read about the latest bill to weaken CA's public safety laws
AB 622 – Early Release for Violent Offenders
Historically, an inmate serving a 25 to life sentence for murder is eligible for parole review 13 months prior to their 25th year in custody, adjusted for time in custody prior to sentencing. This is known as the Minimum Parole Eligibility Date (MEPD). After the passage of Prop 57, the ...
Ben Austin – Can Sacramento Actually Fix California’s Underperforming Public Schools?
Ben Austin, longtime politico who has worked in both Democrat and Republican administrations in California and Washington, DC and now founding director of Education Civil Rights Now – a national non-profit with the mission of establishing a constitutional right to a high-quality public education for all students – joins PRI’s ...
Newsom’s Diaper Plan Stinks
Why a new program when the old one is working ok? The state argues that there are gaps in the existing program, which targets low-income parents. Instead of simply filling the gaps, the state wants to impose some elaborate scheme that is akin to killing a gnat with a shotgun. ...
