Blog
Blackouts
Why Are California Gas Prices So High These Days? Thank Sacramento.
Benjamin Franklin was right that “nothing is certain but death and taxes,” though he could have added a third certainty in California – paying significantly more than the national average for gasoline. California drivers are living a real life version of the movie “Groundhog Day”, more than $4 per gallon ...
Tim Anaya
October 14, 2019
Blog
What We’re Watching – October 11
Tim Anaya – Freedom of Speech Apparently Ends When You Enter an NBA Arena This week’s controversy over the NBA and China apparently extended to home. Adding insult to injury, as this video produced by the Daily Caller shows, NBA security officials confiscated signs held up by supporters of the ...
Pacific Research Institute
October 11, 2019
Blog
Stockton’s Basic Income Experiment: 40% Of The Money Is Unaccounted For
The initial report on Stockton’s “basic income” experiment, in which 125 residents in low-income Zip Codes receive $500 a month, shows that most of the money that can be tracked has been spent on necessities. But that’s only part of the story. Forty percent was transferred to bank accounts or ...
Kerry Jackson
October 10, 2019
Blog
Is the Gig Up After Signing of AB 5?
Now that dust has settled after the signing of perhaps the hottest bill this legislative session – Assembly Bill 5 – what’s next for those who work in the gig economy? A panel of free-market advocates and subject matter experts recently got together to discuss the bill’s aftermath at Pacific ...
Evan Harris
October 9, 2019
Blog
California Teacher Quality Policies Among Nation’s Worst
While California’s teacher unions are winning expensive battles on the strike lines and are flexing their political muscle in Sacramento, new research shows that state teacher-quality policies are failing to ensure that every public-school classroom in the state has a highly effective teacher. In Oakland and Los Angeles, the teacher ...
Lance Izumi
October 8, 2019
Blog
New Survey Results Should Give Lawmakers Pause Before Embracing Single-Payer Health Care
One issue that was pushed on the backburner in this year’s very eventful legislative session was single-payer health care. Surprisingly, even though the Senate actually passed a single payer bill (SB 562) last session, a single-payer bill wasn’t even introduced this legislative session. Now as our attention turns to the ...
Tim Anaya
October 7, 2019
Blog
What We’re Watching – October 4
Tim Anaya – How One Irish Family Transformed Their 4 Bedroom Home into an 89-Room, 4-Star Resort This week, I returned from a two week tour of England, Scotland, and Ireland. At our final destination in Limerick, I had the opportunity to stay at the Fitzgerald Woodlands Hotel and talk ...
Pacific Research Institute
October 4, 2019
Blog
Is California’s Data Privacy Law a Ticking Time Bomb for Business?
With the deadline for California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign or veto legislation fast approaching, one public policy issue that received little to no attention at the end of California’s legislative session is the state’s pending data privacy law. In 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act was made law when ...
Evan Harris
October 3, 2019
Blog
When They Don’t Have to Do the Time, They’ll Do the Crime
When Proposition 47 was passed, no small number of critics said it would lead to increases in property crimes as it downgraded theft to a misdemeanor if the value of the stolen goods or bad checks is less than $950. The threshold had been $450. Five years later, some law ...
Kerry Jackson
October 2, 2019
Blog
CAPITAL IDEAS: California’s Electric Car Future to Nowhere
DOWNLOAD THE BRIEF California lawmakers won’t give up on their crusade to force everyone in the state into electric cars (before eventually removing us out of our cars altogether). That electric vehicles neither sell nor perform up to reasonable expectations is irrelevant to the anti-car movement in Sacramento. It’s almost ...
Kerry Jackson
October 1, 2019
Why Are California Gas Prices So High These Days? Thank Sacramento.
Benjamin Franklin was right that “nothing is certain but death and taxes,” though he could have added a third certainty in California – paying significantly more than the national average for gasoline. California drivers are living a real life version of the movie “Groundhog Day”, more than $4 per gallon ...
What We’re Watching – October 11
Tim Anaya – Freedom of Speech Apparently Ends When You Enter an NBA Arena This week’s controversy over the NBA and China apparently extended to home. Adding insult to injury, as this video produced by the Daily Caller shows, NBA security officials confiscated signs held up by supporters of the ...
Stockton’s Basic Income Experiment: 40% Of The Money Is Unaccounted For
The initial report on Stockton’s “basic income” experiment, in which 125 residents in low-income Zip Codes receive $500 a month, shows that most of the money that can be tracked has been spent on necessities. But that’s only part of the story. Forty percent was transferred to bank accounts or ...
Is the Gig Up After Signing of AB 5?
Now that dust has settled after the signing of perhaps the hottest bill this legislative session – Assembly Bill 5 – what’s next for those who work in the gig economy? A panel of free-market advocates and subject matter experts recently got together to discuss the bill’s aftermath at Pacific ...
California Teacher Quality Policies Among Nation’s Worst
While California’s teacher unions are winning expensive battles on the strike lines and are flexing their political muscle in Sacramento, new research shows that state teacher-quality policies are failing to ensure that every public-school classroom in the state has a highly effective teacher. In Oakland and Los Angeles, the teacher ...
New Survey Results Should Give Lawmakers Pause Before Embracing Single-Payer Health Care
One issue that was pushed on the backburner in this year’s very eventful legislative session was single-payer health care. Surprisingly, even though the Senate actually passed a single payer bill (SB 562) last session, a single-payer bill wasn’t even introduced this legislative session. Now as our attention turns to the ...
What We’re Watching – October 4
Tim Anaya – How One Irish Family Transformed Their 4 Bedroom Home into an 89-Room, 4-Star Resort This week, I returned from a two week tour of England, Scotland, and Ireland. At our final destination in Limerick, I had the opportunity to stay at the Fitzgerald Woodlands Hotel and talk ...
Is California’s Data Privacy Law a Ticking Time Bomb for Business?
With the deadline for California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign or veto legislation fast approaching, one public policy issue that received little to no attention at the end of California’s legislative session is the state’s pending data privacy law. In 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act was made law when ...
When They Don’t Have to Do the Time, They’ll Do the Crime
When Proposition 47 was passed, no small number of critics said it would lead to increases in property crimes as it downgraded theft to a misdemeanor if the value of the stolen goods or bad checks is less than $950. The threshold had been $450. Five years later, some law ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: California’s Electric Car Future to Nowhere
DOWNLOAD THE BRIEF California lawmakers won’t give up on their crusade to force everyone in the state into electric cars (before eventually removing us out of our cars altogether). That electric vehicles neither sell nor perform up to reasonable expectations is irrelevant to the anti-car movement in Sacramento. It’s almost ...