Blog
Blog
Cities should forget sport-subsidy hype and focus on basics
Cities should forget sport-subsidy hype and focus on basics By D. Dowd Muska | August 8, 2025 Three years to go. The opening ceremony for the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad is scheduled for July 14, 2028. And the men and women of the organizing committee are working feverishly ...
Blog
Despite ‘pro-housing’ programs, California’s crisis getting worse
Cities including Spokane, Tulsa and Memphis support pre-approved designs to streamline small-scale builds, similar to what California has sought to promote with its Pro-housing Designation Program (PDP). But many question why California’s land entitlement process—getting the zoning, use and building design approval from local governments to comply with state mandates—often ...
Blog
The Gordon Chang Report–China is Making the World Food-Insecure
READ THE PDF China Is Making the World Food-Insecure Of all the countries in the world, only one produces all the food it needs: South America’s Guyana.[1] Does food self-sufficiency matter anymore? In a peaceful and stable period, perhaps not, because the trade in foodstuffs this century led to rising ...
Blog
Read the latest on California's rising gas prices
California Goes Groucho On Gasoline
What did California officials think was going to happen when they decided it was a dazzlingly brilliant idea to hound the oil industry out of the state? That magic would take over and there would be no consequences for their rash decisions? Apparently, they weren’t thinking at all, because, according to reports, the California Energy ...
Blog
The fast food minimum wage hike continues to kill jobs
Governor Newsom Protests Too Much – the Minimum Wage Increase Did Destroy Jobs
As the New York Post reported, Newsom’s deputy director of communications Tara Gallegos disputed the findings of the piece, pointing out to Fox News Digital that the research paper was linked to the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank she claimed has published “false or misleading information” about California’s ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Why are urbanites more likely to embrace zero-sum thinking?
The well-worn stereotypes of urban sophisticates versus country bumpkins took a hit in July when an up-and-coming French economist explained her latest findings in The Economist, a publication with more than 1.2 million subscribers globally and significant influence with policymakers in the English-speaking world. “Some groups are more likely than others to see the world ...
Blog
Teacher shortages, layoffs hit big cities and rural areas hardest
Teacher shortages, layoffs hit big cities and rural areas hardest by John Seiler | July 31, 2025 Even $24,764 average spending per student can’t stop the shortage of teachers in California. The number comes from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2025-26, which began on July 1. For ...
Blog
Read part 3 of a series on drug pricing
Regulations, Not Anticompetitive Actions, Are Obstructing Drug Competition
The flaws driving up costs across the broader health care landscape are also driving up the costs for innovative drugs. After all, pharmaceuticals are an integral component used in combination with the broader healthcare system. As a result, spending on medicines both influences and is influenced by the spending on ...
Blog
California’s flawed budgeting causes routine deficits
For years analysts have warned that California’s overreliance on a roller-coaster stock market destabilizes California’s budget. During bull markets, revenues surge and Sacramento politicians commit to an unaffordable level of spending that only becomes evident when revenues inevitably crash. Rather than admitting that the spending was never affordable, the political ...
Agriculture
Immigration policy reform, not Medicaid recipients, is the answer to our workforce problem
Some harvests have already started across the country despite farms and ranches facing labor shortages. Where will workers come from to ensure crops don’t go unharvested? U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently made a suggestion. In a news conference Rollins said, “So, no amnesty under any circumstances, mass deportations continue, ...
Cities should forget sport-subsidy hype and focus on basics
Cities should forget sport-subsidy hype and focus on basics By D. Dowd Muska | August 8, 2025 Three years to go. The opening ceremony for the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad is scheduled for July 14, 2028. And the men and women of the organizing committee are working feverishly ...
Despite ‘pro-housing’ programs, California’s crisis getting worse
Cities including Spokane, Tulsa and Memphis support pre-approved designs to streamline small-scale builds, similar to what California has sought to promote with its Pro-housing Designation Program (PDP). But many question why California’s land entitlement process—getting the zoning, use and building design approval from local governments to comply with state mandates—often ...
The Gordon Chang Report–China is Making the World Food-Insecure
READ THE PDF China Is Making the World Food-Insecure Of all the countries in the world, only one produces all the food it needs: South America’s Guyana.[1] Does food self-sufficiency matter anymore? In a peaceful and stable period, perhaps not, because the trade in foodstuffs this century led to rising ...
Read the latest on California's rising gas prices
California Goes Groucho On Gasoline
What did California officials think was going to happen when they decided it was a dazzlingly brilliant idea to hound the oil industry out of the state? That magic would take over and there would be no consequences for their rash decisions? Apparently, they weren’t thinking at all, because, according to reports, the California Energy ...
The fast food minimum wage hike continues to kill jobs
Governor Newsom Protests Too Much – the Minimum Wage Increase Did Destroy Jobs
As the New York Post reported, Newsom’s deputy director of communications Tara Gallegos disputed the findings of the piece, pointing out to Fox News Digital that the research paper was linked to the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank she claimed has published “false or misleading information” about California’s ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Why are urbanites more likely to embrace zero-sum thinking?
The well-worn stereotypes of urban sophisticates versus country bumpkins took a hit in July when an up-and-coming French economist explained her latest findings in The Economist, a publication with more than 1.2 million subscribers globally and significant influence with policymakers in the English-speaking world. “Some groups are more likely than others to see the world ...
Teacher shortages, layoffs hit big cities and rural areas hardest
Teacher shortages, layoffs hit big cities and rural areas hardest by John Seiler | July 31, 2025 Even $24,764 average spending per student can’t stop the shortage of teachers in California. The number comes from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2025-26, which began on July 1. For ...
Read part 3 of a series on drug pricing
Regulations, Not Anticompetitive Actions, Are Obstructing Drug Competition
The flaws driving up costs across the broader health care landscape are also driving up the costs for innovative drugs. After all, pharmaceuticals are an integral component used in combination with the broader healthcare system. As a result, spending on medicines both influences and is influenced by the spending on ...
California’s flawed budgeting causes routine deficits
For years analysts have warned that California’s overreliance on a roller-coaster stock market destabilizes California’s budget. During bull markets, revenues surge and Sacramento politicians commit to an unaffordable level of spending that only becomes evident when revenues inevitably crash. Rather than admitting that the spending was never affordable, the political ...
Immigration policy reform, not Medicaid recipients, is the answer to our workforce problem
Some harvests have already started across the country despite farms and ranches facing labor shortages. Where will workers come from to ensure crops don’t go unharvested? U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently made a suggestion. In a news conference Rollins said, “So, no amnesty under any circumstances, mass deportations continue, ...
