Blog
Single Payer Poll Watch: Coronavirus Update
Coronavirus is impacting everything and anything it touches. In the March PRI Single Payer Poll Watch, average opposition to a single payer plan overtook support, continuing the trend of growing opposition to a single payer health care plan PRI noticed in our first poll watch in December 2019. With the ...
Blog
What We’re Watching – March 27
Tim Anaya – Escape the Drug Pricing Maze Watch Professor Salvare guide Pete Paystoomuch through the drug pricing maze, showing how the direction policymakers take on drug pricing policy could impact the affordability and availability of current medicines, and innovation that could lead to future, life-saving cures. Ben Smithwick – ...
Blog
How State Budget Will Be Impacted by Coronavirus Coming More into Focus
A clearer picture formed this week about how the coronavirus will affect the state budget, with action in Sacramento and Washington. Director of Finance Keely Bosler sent a letter to lawmakers that the department will “reevaluate all budget changes within the context of a workload budget.” “While our first priority ...
Blog
What a Difference a State Makes: The Future of Charter Schools in California vs. Arizona
While Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-supermajority in the Legislature effectively eliminated most charter-school expansion in California, the charter school landscape is much different in neighboring Arizona. When Governor Newsom signed the anti-charter-school-expansion bill into law last year, his office said that new charter schools will likely not open in ...
Blog
The Coronavirus Aftermath: Debt and Deficits as Far as the Eye Can See
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas Layin’ in the sun, Talkin’ ’bout the things They woulda coulda shoulda done… –Shel Silverstein As of this writing, the Trump Administration has pledged to spend more than a trillion dollars to save the lives and livelihoods of Americans as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. We’re ...
Blog
What Governments Are Doing to Try and Salvage the Economy
Until recently, terms like social distancing and even the coronavirus were nonexistent. Now these terms could come to define the beginning of a pending global recession the likes of which have yet to test modern economic markets. As parts of California shelter in place and millions engage in the largest ...
Blog
What We’re Watching – Stay at Home Edition
Tim Anaya – Week to Week Political Roundtable on Coronavirus In case you missed it, last night I joined the Commonwealth Club’s Week to Week Political Roundtable. Due to the shelter in place orders in Sacramento and San Francisco – it was a livestreamed event and I joined the panel ...
Blog
Legislative Analyst Offers First Hint of Impact of Coronavirus on State Budget
The coronavirus and the massive economic shutdown that has accompanied it as large parts of California are sheltering in place is significantly complicating work on the May Revise of the Gov. Newsom’s budget, due in just weeks. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek on Wednesday released his first assessment of ...
Blog
The Train That’s Still Going Nowhere
The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently issued its Review of the Draft 2020 High-Speed Rail Business Plan. It’s not a ringing endorsement of the project. Three of the report’s five key oversight issues confirm what’s been known all along. California’s bullet train is a troubled enterprise. First, says the LAO, “we ...
Blog
Torpedoing a Successful Charter School
While the statewide assault on charter schools by politicians in Sacramento has garnered headlines, it is the effort to undermine specific successful local charter schools that really pulls at one’s heartstrings. Take, for example, Willow Creek Academy charter school in Sausalito in Marin County. Willow Creek is a K-8 school ...
Single Payer Poll Watch: Coronavirus Update
Coronavirus is impacting everything and anything it touches. In the March PRI Single Payer Poll Watch, average opposition to a single payer plan overtook support, continuing the trend of growing opposition to a single payer health care plan PRI noticed in our first poll watch in December 2019. With the ...
What We’re Watching – March 27
Tim Anaya – Escape the Drug Pricing Maze Watch Professor Salvare guide Pete Paystoomuch through the drug pricing maze, showing how the direction policymakers take on drug pricing policy could impact the affordability and availability of current medicines, and innovation that could lead to future, life-saving cures. Ben Smithwick – ...
How State Budget Will Be Impacted by Coronavirus Coming More into Focus
A clearer picture formed this week about how the coronavirus will affect the state budget, with action in Sacramento and Washington. Director of Finance Keely Bosler sent a letter to lawmakers that the department will “reevaluate all budget changes within the context of a workload budget.” “While our first priority ...
What a Difference a State Makes: The Future of Charter Schools in California vs. Arizona
While Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-supermajority in the Legislature effectively eliminated most charter-school expansion in California, the charter school landscape is much different in neighboring Arizona. When Governor Newsom signed the anti-charter-school-expansion bill into law last year, his office said that new charter schools will likely not open in ...
The Coronavirus Aftermath: Debt and Deficits as Far as the Eye Can See
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas Layin’ in the sun, Talkin’ ’bout the things They woulda coulda shoulda done… –Shel Silverstein As of this writing, the Trump Administration has pledged to spend more than a trillion dollars to save the lives and livelihoods of Americans as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. We’re ...
What Governments Are Doing to Try and Salvage the Economy
Until recently, terms like social distancing and even the coronavirus were nonexistent. Now these terms could come to define the beginning of a pending global recession the likes of which have yet to test modern economic markets. As parts of California shelter in place and millions engage in the largest ...
What We’re Watching – Stay at Home Edition
Tim Anaya – Week to Week Political Roundtable on Coronavirus In case you missed it, last night I joined the Commonwealth Club’s Week to Week Political Roundtable. Due to the shelter in place orders in Sacramento and San Francisco – it was a livestreamed event and I joined the panel ...
Legislative Analyst Offers First Hint of Impact of Coronavirus on State Budget
The coronavirus and the massive economic shutdown that has accompanied it as large parts of California are sheltering in place is significantly complicating work on the May Revise of the Gov. Newsom’s budget, due in just weeks. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Gabriel Petek on Wednesday released his first assessment of ...
The Train That’s Still Going Nowhere
The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently issued its Review of the Draft 2020 High-Speed Rail Business Plan. It’s not a ringing endorsement of the project. Three of the report’s five key oversight issues confirm what’s been known all along. California’s bullet train is a troubled enterprise. First, says the LAO, “we ...
Torpedoing a Successful Charter School
While the statewide assault on charter schools by politicians in Sacramento has garnered headlines, it is the effort to undermine specific successful local charter schools that really pulls at one’s heartstrings. Take, for example, Willow Creek Academy charter school in Sausalito in Marin County. Willow Creek is a K-8 school ...
