Blog
Grants Pass and Prop 36 Will Help Policymakers Control California’s Homeless Crisis
Between 2007 and 2014, homelessness declined faster in California than the rest of the country – an 18 percent total decline in California compared to a 9 percent total decline in the rest of the country. And then something happened in 2014. While the number of homeless in California began ...
Agriculture
Read a Christmas wish for California's farmers
A farmer’s ag policy Christmas wish
Early this year, the 2022 Census of Agriculture was released by the USDA. The data was alarming. California lost 7,387 farms in five years. That works out to be 1,477 farms and ranches a year; 28 a week; four a day. More staggering was the land in farms lost. Between ...
Blog
Read the latest on Gov. Newsom's green mandates
Biden Greenlights California’s Unworkable Green Car Mandates on Way Out the Door
As expected, the Environmental Protection Agency granted on Dec. 17 permission for California to go outside of federal law. California and other states need exemptions from the EPA to enact stricter air quality standards than those set by the 1970 Clean Air Act. And the Biden White House is clearly ...
Blog
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets John Seiler | December 20, 2024 IT HAS TO END SOMETIME. The national debt has soared above $36 trillion – and counting. And when the party does end, cities are going to be hit. How hard is for the future. ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
The market, not politics, should drive office conversions
At least everyone agrees there’s a problem. Americans’ preference for commute-free employment has yielded a surfeit of office vacancy. The phenomenon is a calamity for lessors plagued by plummeting income. Earlier this month, The Seattle Times reported that one of the city’s “most aggressive, and tenacious, developers” has “defaulted on a $240 million loan ...
Blog
Read about wind energy's latest challenges
Should California Go Full Steam Ahead on Offshore Wind Farms? Latest Evidence Says No
One, the concept is untried on an industrial scale. Floating offshore wind turbines, which California believes will provide a full quarter of the state’s electric power by 2045, “is largely underdeveloped in the United States,” host Kevin Sliman says in an interview with two Penn State University Institute of Energy and ...
Basic Income
Spending Watch
A More Effective Safety Net, Not A Basic Income, Will Help Lift People Out of Poverty
A More Effective Safety Net, Not A Basic Income, Will Help Lift People Out of Poverty Wayne Winegarden and Nikhil Agarwal December 2024 2024 was a good year for proponents of a universal basic income (UBI). Following the 2019 experiment in Stockton, UBI pilot programs are underway across cities in ...
Blog
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability By Randal O’Toole | December 13, 2024 Nearly two years ago, Oregon’s Gov. Tina Kotek set a target of increasing the number of homes built in Oregon each year from 22,000 to 36,000. At the time, I argued that the subsidies Kotek was ...
Blog
The Gordon Chang Report–Why China Believes Taiwan Is An Existential Threat
READ THE PDF Why China Believes Taiwan is an Existential Threat “The reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” Xi Jinping proclaimed in his 2024 New Year’s address, referring to Taiwan.[1] China’s annexation of Taiwan as its 34th province, however, is by no means guaranteed. So far, Taiwan—officially the ...
Blog
The False Promise of a Government Takeover of our Health Care System
My goal today is to expose the false promise of a fully government-run healthcare system — “Medicare for All,” as some progressives style it. Under this vision, private insurance would be illegal, and all Americans would be enrolled in a single, federally run insurance plan. That’s why some people call ...
Grants Pass and Prop 36 Will Help Policymakers Control California’s Homeless Crisis
Between 2007 and 2014, homelessness declined faster in California than the rest of the country – an 18 percent total decline in California compared to a 9 percent total decline in the rest of the country. And then something happened in 2014. While the number of homeless in California began ...
Read a Christmas wish for California's farmers
A farmer’s ag policy Christmas wish
Early this year, the 2022 Census of Agriculture was released by the USDA. The data was alarming. California lost 7,387 farms in five years. That works out to be 1,477 farms and ranches a year; 28 a week; four a day. More staggering was the land in farms lost. Between ...
Read the latest on Gov. Newsom's green mandates
Biden Greenlights California’s Unworkable Green Car Mandates on Way Out the Door
As expected, the Environmental Protection Agency granted on Dec. 17 permission for California to go outside of federal law. California and other states need exemptions from the EPA to enact stricter air quality standards than those set by the 1970 Clean Air Act. And the Biden White House is clearly ...
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets John Seiler | December 20, 2024 IT HAS TO END SOMETIME. The national debt has soared above $36 trillion – and counting. And when the party does end, cities are going to be hit. How hard is for the future. ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
The market, not politics, should drive office conversions
At least everyone agrees there’s a problem. Americans’ preference for commute-free employment has yielded a surfeit of office vacancy. The phenomenon is a calamity for lessors plagued by plummeting income. Earlier this month, The Seattle Times reported that one of the city’s “most aggressive, and tenacious, developers” has “defaulted on a $240 million loan ...
Read about wind energy's latest challenges
Should California Go Full Steam Ahead on Offshore Wind Farms? Latest Evidence Says No
One, the concept is untried on an industrial scale. Floating offshore wind turbines, which California believes will provide a full quarter of the state’s electric power by 2045, “is largely underdeveloped in the United States,” host Kevin Sliman says in an interview with two Penn State University Institute of Energy and ...
Spending Watch
A More Effective Safety Net, Not A Basic Income, Will Help Lift People Out of Poverty
A More Effective Safety Net, Not A Basic Income, Will Help Lift People Out of Poverty Wayne Winegarden and Nikhil Agarwal December 2024 2024 was a good year for proponents of a universal basic income (UBI). Following the 2019 experiment in Stockton, UBI pilot programs are underway across cities in ...
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability By Randal O’Toole | December 13, 2024 Nearly two years ago, Oregon’s Gov. Tina Kotek set a target of increasing the number of homes built in Oregon each year from 22,000 to 36,000. At the time, I argued that the subsidies Kotek was ...
The Gordon Chang Report–Why China Believes Taiwan Is An Existential Threat
READ THE PDF Why China Believes Taiwan is an Existential Threat “The reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” Xi Jinping proclaimed in his 2024 New Year’s address, referring to Taiwan.[1] China’s annexation of Taiwan as its 34th province, however, is by no means guaranteed. So far, Taiwan—officially the ...
The False Promise of a Government Takeover of our Health Care System
My goal today is to expose the false promise of a fully government-run healthcare system — “Medicare for All,” as some progressives style it. Under this vision, private insurance would be illegal, and all Americans would be enrolled in a single, federally run insurance plan. That’s why some people call ...
