Blog
Blog
Political Investment Decisions Hurt Taxpayers, State Retirees
The most recent estimate says that California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest public employee pension fund in the nation with about 1.8 million beneficiaries, has an unfunded liability of roughly $138 billion with total obligations of around $435 billion. While part of that gap is due to the government ...
Blog
What If We Created a “Free-Market Hall of Fame”?
Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending the annual California Hall of Fame ceremony. Every year, the Governor presents our state’s highest honor to a group of Californians past and present who have made a lasting contribution to the fabric of the Golden State in business, arts and ...
Blog
Robots, Work, and Retirement
If you’re thinking about giving a robot to someone this Christmas, on Amazon.com you’ll find 290,991 choices. I bought my brother a robot for Christmas last year when he announced that he will be retiring from his job as a computer engineer after 35 years. Overnight, he went from being ...
Blog
There’s Plenty To Like About Trump’s HHS Pick, Alex Azar
President Trump’s nomination of Alex Azar for secretary of Health and Human Services is encouraging news for free-market health reformers. Azar possesses precisely the combination of legal acumen, bureaucratic savvy, management experience dealing with a large workforce, and private-sector experience required to eliminate those parts of Obamacare that can be accomplished through ...
Blog
Is Prop. 54 Needed in Congress?
Over the weekend, I made the rounds of various bipartisan holiday parties filled with California politicos. The late-night vote on the Senate GOP tax plan was certainly the conversation du jour. My liberal friends decried the harried, last-minute nature of the vote, specifically hundreds of pages of bill language being ...
Agriculture
Cedar Point Nursery Case Could End Trespassing on Private Land
Unions have long had government-protected privileges that no other institution or organization has. They hold monopolies as exclusive collective bargaining units; can collect dues before paychecks are even issued (government is the only other institution that can withhold earnings); and have forced unionization on, and collected dues from, workers who ...
Blog
California’s Anger on Tax Deal Directed at Wrong Capitol
On Friday, the Senate achieved the nearly-impossible and passed long-overdue tax reform legislation. While the legislation will surely be changed in the conference committee, whatever final legislation emerges will provide tax relief for many Americans and provide some incentives to job creators to invest in the economy. Many Californians have ...
Blog
Brown Right Once Again on Public Employee Pension Reform
We are often critical of the way Gov. Jerry Brown governs and the ideas that he proposes. He too often leans on the progressive playbook. But we’ve not been afraid to say that he’s right when he’s right, and today he’s right. The governor is publicly advocating cuts in public ...
Blog
PRI-Manhattan Institute Forum Addresses California’s Drug Pricing Challenge
Earlier this week, PRI joined with the Manhattan Institute to host a well-attended Sacramento panel discussion on California’s drug pricing challenge. Many thanks to my friend and former longtime Capitol reporter Marcey Brightwell, who did an outstanding job moderating the event. Drug pricing emerged as one of the hottest issues ...
Blog
The Other Pretty Girl
At a PRI conference a few years ago, someone in the audience had a great question for our keynote speaker, a renowned economist: Given California’s bad economic policies, why do people still like the state? With typical flair and charm, not to mention political incorrectness (which is why I am ...
Political Investment Decisions Hurt Taxpayers, State Retirees
The most recent estimate says that California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest public employee pension fund in the nation with about 1.8 million beneficiaries, has an unfunded liability of roughly $138 billion with total obligations of around $435 billion. While part of that gap is due to the government ...
What If We Created a “Free-Market Hall of Fame”?
Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending the annual California Hall of Fame ceremony. Every year, the Governor presents our state’s highest honor to a group of Californians past and present who have made a lasting contribution to the fabric of the Golden State in business, arts and ...
Robots, Work, and Retirement
If you’re thinking about giving a robot to someone this Christmas, on Amazon.com you’ll find 290,991 choices. I bought my brother a robot for Christmas last year when he announced that he will be retiring from his job as a computer engineer after 35 years. Overnight, he went from being ...
There’s Plenty To Like About Trump’s HHS Pick, Alex Azar
President Trump’s nomination of Alex Azar for secretary of Health and Human Services is encouraging news for free-market health reformers. Azar possesses precisely the combination of legal acumen, bureaucratic savvy, management experience dealing with a large workforce, and private-sector experience required to eliminate those parts of Obamacare that can be accomplished through ...
Is Prop. 54 Needed in Congress?
Over the weekend, I made the rounds of various bipartisan holiday parties filled with California politicos. The late-night vote on the Senate GOP tax plan was certainly the conversation du jour. My liberal friends decried the harried, last-minute nature of the vote, specifically hundreds of pages of bill language being ...
Cedar Point Nursery Case Could End Trespassing on Private Land
Unions have long had government-protected privileges that no other institution or organization has. They hold monopolies as exclusive collective bargaining units; can collect dues before paychecks are even issued (government is the only other institution that can withhold earnings); and have forced unionization on, and collected dues from, workers who ...
California’s Anger on Tax Deal Directed at Wrong Capitol
On Friday, the Senate achieved the nearly-impossible and passed long-overdue tax reform legislation. While the legislation will surely be changed in the conference committee, whatever final legislation emerges will provide tax relief for many Americans and provide some incentives to job creators to invest in the economy. Many Californians have ...
Brown Right Once Again on Public Employee Pension Reform
We are often critical of the way Gov. Jerry Brown governs and the ideas that he proposes. He too often leans on the progressive playbook. But we’ve not been afraid to say that he’s right when he’s right, and today he’s right. The governor is publicly advocating cuts in public ...
PRI-Manhattan Institute Forum Addresses California’s Drug Pricing Challenge
Earlier this week, PRI joined with the Manhattan Institute to host a well-attended Sacramento panel discussion on California’s drug pricing challenge. Many thanks to my friend and former longtime Capitol reporter Marcey Brightwell, who did an outstanding job moderating the event. Drug pricing emerged as one of the hottest issues ...
The Other Pretty Girl
At a PRI conference a few years ago, someone in the audience had a great question for our keynote speaker, a renowned economist: Given California’s bad economic policies, why do people still like the state? With typical flair and charm, not to mention political incorrectness (which is why I am ...
