Entrepreneurship
Business & Economics
Can We Fix the California Crackup?
Last month, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation came to Sacramento to promote their new book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It. Few if any in the audience at the University of California Sacramento Center took issue with ...
Business & Economics
Golden State offers tarnished ideas
Huge deficits and mounting debt. Increasing concern about creditworthiness. Large and growing government. Constant calls for higher taxes. High unemployment and a discouraged, even fearful, business community. Welcome to California. If you thought we were describing Washington, you had good reason. In instance after instance, Washington has mimicked the failed ...
Business & Economics
Tax competitiveness is key to California recovery
California’s budget deficit is currently estimated at $19 billion, but the Golden State also suffers from myriad tax-based problems. To recover economic prosperity, the state needs immediate tax reform and long-term tax relief. The Golden State relies heavily on personal income taxes, which impose much larger economic costs than consumption ...
Business & Economics
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
Business & Economics
Make California ‘open for business’
California’s unemployment rate, according to the most recent figures, is 12.4 percent, down from a revised 12.5 percent the month before, which was the highest jobless rate ever recorded for California since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting standardized data in 1976. Such high unemployment is powerful evidence of ...
Business & Economics
What an economist learned in Haiti
I recently spent a week in Haiti helping with reconstruction efforts. I volunteered only as someone with two hands and a lot of Gatorade, but my professional background as an economist allowed me to diagnose some of Haiti’s problems. These go much deeper than the earthquake. I registered with the ...
Business & Economics
Drowning In A VAT Of Taxes
The debate over a national sales tax, or valued-added tax, to tackle the country’s deficit and debt problems has intensified as we approach the fall election. Unfortunately the facts are becoming more obscure, and the narrow scope within which a VAT makes sense is being lost. This should be clarified–if ...
Business & Economics
A dishonest debate on VAT
The debate over a national sales tax, or value-added tax (VAT), to tackle the country’s deficit and debt problems is becoming fiercer as we approach the fall election. Unfortunately, the facts are becoming more obscure, and the narrow scope within which a VAT makes sense is being lost. This should ...
Business & Economics
Washington needs spending reform, not just tax reform
Washingtonians are struggling with unemployment and a sluggish economic recovery. In these conditions, it’s worth understanding how tax policies in Olympia are hurting a state the recession has hit particularly hard. Washington’s unemployment rate, which stood at 9.5 percent in March, has increased or remained the same every month since ...
Business & Economics
High taxes choke off jobs for Rhode Islanders
Rhode Island is still struggling with unemployment, a sluggish economic recovery, and increasing worker anxiety. It’s worthwhile to understand how tax policies generated on Smith Hill are hurting a state the recession has hit particularly hard. At 12.7 percent unemployment, Rhode Island has the country’s third-highest rate. Equally disturbing is ...
Can We Fix the California Crackup?
Last month, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation came to Sacramento to promote their new book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It. Few if any in the audience at the University of California Sacramento Center took issue with ...
Golden State offers tarnished ideas
Huge deficits and mounting debt. Increasing concern about creditworthiness. Large and growing government. Constant calls for higher taxes. High unemployment and a discouraged, even fearful, business community. Welcome to California. If you thought we were describing Washington, you had good reason. In instance after instance, Washington has mimicked the failed ...
Tax competitiveness is key to California recovery
California’s budget deficit is currently estimated at $19 billion, but the Golden State also suffers from myriad tax-based problems. To recover economic prosperity, the state needs immediate tax reform and long-term tax relief. The Golden State relies heavily on personal income taxes, which impose much larger economic costs than consumption ...
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
Make California ‘open for business’
California’s unemployment rate, according to the most recent figures, is 12.4 percent, down from a revised 12.5 percent the month before, which was the highest jobless rate ever recorded for California since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting standardized data in 1976. Such high unemployment is powerful evidence of ...
What an economist learned in Haiti
I recently spent a week in Haiti helping with reconstruction efforts. I volunteered only as someone with two hands and a lot of Gatorade, but my professional background as an economist allowed me to diagnose some of Haiti’s problems. These go much deeper than the earthquake. I registered with the ...
Drowning In A VAT Of Taxes
The debate over a national sales tax, or valued-added tax, to tackle the country’s deficit and debt problems has intensified as we approach the fall election. Unfortunately the facts are becoming more obscure, and the narrow scope within which a VAT makes sense is being lost. This should be clarified–if ...
A dishonest debate on VAT
The debate over a national sales tax, or value-added tax (VAT), to tackle the country’s deficit and debt problems is becoming fiercer as we approach the fall election. Unfortunately, the facts are becoming more obscure, and the narrow scope within which a VAT makes sense is being lost. This should ...
Washington needs spending reform, not just tax reform
Washingtonians are struggling with unemployment and a sluggish economic recovery. In these conditions, it’s worth understanding how tax policies in Olympia are hurting a state the recession has hit particularly hard. Washington’s unemployment rate, which stood at 9.5 percent in March, has increased or remained the same every month since ...
High taxes choke off jobs for Rhode Islanders
Rhode Island is still struggling with unemployment, a sluggish economic recovery, and increasing worker anxiety. It’s worthwhile to understand how tax policies generated on Smith Hill are hurting a state the recession has hit particularly hard. At 12.7 percent unemployment, Rhode Island has the country’s third-highest rate. Equally disturbing is ...