California
Blog
How Many Billionaires Would It Take to Fund Bernie’s Agenda?
Our 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 taxes.” Why not cut to the chase, thought Winegarden, “Instead ...
Blog
Worker Freedom No More
Love 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 employment” law that changes the worker status ...
Blog
A Prescription for Homelessness That Would Actually Clean Up our Streets
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered his annual State of the State address at the State Capitol. And in an unusual twist, he devoted the entire address to one topic – homelessness. Typically, the State of the State outlines a governor’s policy wish list in a variety of areas. Newsom ...
California
PRI 2nd Annual Policy Conference: The Homeless Crisis
California’s growing homeless crisis is impacting nearly everyone, especially those living in big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. In Governor Newsom’s recent State of the State address, he reportedly spent 35 of his 42 minute speech on the homeless crisis. On the same day, PRI held an ...
Commentary
Bernie’s Math Problem
Anyone in earshot of a television set, or a smart phone, is undoubtedly aware that the undisputed front-runner in the Democratic Primary wants to spend more money – a lot of it. And, while these policies are economically flawed, Senator Sanders also has a fundamental math problem. Reviewing his website, there ...
Blog
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
California
How State Policy Makers Can Avoid It Becoming Siligone Valley
As unlikely as it seems, we could see in our lifetimes the decline of Silicon Valley, maybe the most dynamic economic and innovation machine man has ever known. Can it be avoided? Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, who’s earned Silicon Valley’s grandest fortune, said at last month’s 2020 Silicon Slopes Tech ...
Blog
Could Sweeping, Last Minute Change Inspire Mischief in 2020 Elections?
Regular Right by the Bay readers know that I have written often about the Legislature’s efforts in recent years to change California’s elections rules for political advantage. The latest of these is a bill enacted in the final weeks of the most important California presidential primary in decades that could ...
Blog
The California High-Cost Rail
The projected cost of the California bullet train has whipsawed up and down like share prices in a volatile market. The latest forecast adds $1.3 billion to the estimated price tag. Now at $80.3 billion, it’s a long way from its humble beginnings of $33 billion, the amount voters approved ...
Blog
Would Newsom’s Climate Catalyst Action Fund Fuel Second Coming of Solyndra?
Last week, California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office was on a roll – releasing several, often-critical analyses of some of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s high profile budget proposals. Particularly pointed was its analysis of Newsom’s proposal to create a so-called “Climate Catalyst Action Fund.” According to the administration’s budget documents, it “would ...
How Many Billionaires Would It Take to Fund Bernie’s Agenda?
Our 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 taxes.” Why not cut to the chase, thought Winegarden, “Instead ...
Worker Freedom No More
Love 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 employment” law that changes the worker status ...
A Prescription for Homelessness That Would Actually Clean Up our Streets
Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered his annual State of the State address at the State Capitol. And in an unusual twist, he devoted the entire address to one topic – homelessness. Typically, the State of the State outlines a governor’s policy wish list in a variety of areas. Newsom ...
PRI 2nd Annual Policy Conference: The Homeless Crisis
California’s growing homeless crisis is impacting nearly everyone, especially those living in big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. In Governor Newsom’s recent State of the State address, he reportedly spent 35 of his 42 minute speech on the homeless crisis. On the same day, PRI held an ...
Bernie’s Math Problem
Anyone in earshot of a television set, or a smart phone, is undoubtedly aware that the undisputed front-runner in the Democratic Primary wants to spend more money – a lot of it. And, while these policies are economically flawed, Senator Sanders also has a fundamental math problem. Reviewing his website, there ...
CCPA, California Get It Wrong on Data Privacy
Data privacy is one of the defining public policy debates of the new decade. As other countries push data privacy regulation heralded as global standards, California is headed in the other direction with the rollout of the state’s Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA. Unfortunately, the CCPA was not a ...
How State Policy Makers Can Avoid It Becoming Siligone Valley
As unlikely as it seems, we could see in our lifetimes the decline of Silicon Valley, maybe the most dynamic economic and innovation machine man has ever known. Can it be avoided? Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, who’s earned Silicon Valley’s grandest fortune, said at last month’s 2020 Silicon Slopes Tech ...
Could Sweeping, Last Minute Change Inspire Mischief in 2020 Elections?
Regular Right by the Bay readers know that I have written often about the Legislature’s efforts in recent years to change California’s elections rules for political advantage. The latest of these is a bill enacted in the final weeks of the most important California presidential primary in decades that could ...
The California High-Cost Rail
The projected cost of the California bullet train has whipsawed up and down like share prices in a volatile market. The latest forecast adds $1.3 billion to the estimated price tag. Now at $80.3 billion, it’s a long way from its humble beginnings of $33 billion, the amount voters approved ...
Would Newsom’s Climate Catalyst Action Fund Fuel Second Coming of Solyndra?
Last week, California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office was on a roll – releasing several, often-critical analyses of some of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s high profile budget proposals. Particularly pointed was its analysis of Newsom’s proposal to create a so-called “Climate Catalyst Action Fund.” According to the administration’s budget documents, it “would ...
