Blog
Blog
Spending Watch
Too Much Government Spending and Volatile Tax Revenues Drive State’s Budget Problem
Too Much Government Spending and Volatile Tax Revenues Drive State’s Budget Problem Wayne Winegarden March 2024 This analysis is the first publication of Spending Watch, a new initiative from the Pacific Research Institute. Spending Watch is a resource that evaluates the revenue, spending, and economic impacts of major budget and ...
Blog
Increasing rent control will decrease needed housing supply
Increasing rent control will decrease needed housing supply In Los Angeles, people are being offered six-figure dollar sums for homes they don’t even own. At least not in title or in principled terms. The targets of these offers are tenants living in rent-controlled housing, which they have almost as much ...
Blog
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Blame slow-growth policies for housing and homeless crises
By Wayne Winegarden and Steven Greenhut The roots of California’s housing problems aren’t hard to trace given the reams of house-price and population data going back decades. The Los Angeles Times reported the median price of a California home in 1970 was only 5 percent higher than the national average ...
Blog
Latest wild idea - a $50 minimum wage
Why Don’t Businesses Just Print Money?
Maybe it’s time to start thinking about requiring newly elected lawmakers to take an economics 101 class before they start their first session. It seems that maybe outside of our woke and crumbling public education system, there’s no other institution where economic illiteracy is more prevalent than in government. Example ...
Agriculture
Learn about latest California green mandate
‘Build it and they will come’ is not the answer for climate change legislation
The trouble with severely limiting packaging to what can be recycled or composted is, according to the Covered Materials Category List that was developed under the requirements SB 343, most packaging materials cannot be recycled or composted. Phasing out single-use food packaging, which is harmful to the environment, is a ...
Blog
Making Progress in Breaking the Housing Log Jam
LA’s housing reforms are working, but don’t go far enough
Bass has done so through a series of executive directives. Upon taking office in December 2022, Bass signed Executive Directive 1, which instructed city departments to complete reviews of 100% affordable housing applications within 60 days of receipt. At the time, it took city officials an average of six to ...
Blog
Read latest State Budget Update
Newsom’s Budget Plan Sinks in Deficit Quicksand
Gov. Newsom’s budget problems continue to grow worse. After rolling out his $292 billion proposed state budget plan by arguing with the state’s respected independent budget analyst over the size of the deficit, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has more bad news for Newsom about the deficit. On Friday, Newsom’s ...
Blog
Read about new local tax & bond measures
Local voters face 77 tax increases on California’s March ballot
According to its calculation, if all pass the combined hit would be $350 million in direct tax increases and $3.6 billion in bonded indebtedness. The group notes the new debt includes “36 school bonds, 16 transactions and use taxes, 19 parcel taxes, two general obligation bonds, one business license tax, ...
Blog
Spending Watch
Reparations: A Financially Unrealistic Proposal That Will Bankrupt California
Reparations: A Financially Unrealistic Proposal That Will Bankrupt California Wayne Winegarden February 2024 With the introduction of its first set of reparations bills, the California legislature is officially considering the recommendations of the California Reparations Report from the state Reparations Task Force.1 Given these introductions, it is imperative to understand ...
Blog
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad By Steven Greenhut | February 16, 2024 Many modern urbanists like to claim the great urban writer Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” as one of their own. It’s easy to understand, given that Jacobs was ...
Spending Watch
Too Much Government Spending and Volatile Tax Revenues Drive State’s Budget Problem
Too Much Government Spending and Volatile Tax Revenues Drive State’s Budget Problem Wayne Winegarden March 2024 This analysis is the first publication of Spending Watch, a new initiative from the Pacific Research Institute. Spending Watch is a resource that evaluates the revenue, spending, and economic impacts of major budget and ...
Increasing rent control will decrease needed housing supply
Increasing rent control will decrease needed housing supply In Los Angeles, people are being offered six-figure dollar sums for homes they don’t even own. At least not in title or in principled terms. The targets of these offers are tenants living in rent-controlled housing, which they have almost as much ...
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Blame slow-growth policies for housing and homeless crises
By Wayne Winegarden and Steven Greenhut The roots of California’s housing problems aren’t hard to trace given the reams of house-price and population data going back decades. The Los Angeles Times reported the median price of a California home in 1970 was only 5 percent higher than the national average ...
Latest wild idea - a $50 minimum wage
Why Don’t Businesses Just Print Money?
Maybe it’s time to start thinking about requiring newly elected lawmakers to take an economics 101 class before they start their first session. It seems that maybe outside of our woke and crumbling public education system, there’s no other institution where economic illiteracy is more prevalent than in government. Example ...
Learn about latest California green mandate
‘Build it and they will come’ is not the answer for climate change legislation
The trouble with severely limiting packaging to what can be recycled or composted is, according to the Covered Materials Category List that was developed under the requirements SB 343, most packaging materials cannot be recycled or composted. Phasing out single-use food packaging, which is harmful to the environment, is a ...
Making Progress in Breaking the Housing Log Jam
LA’s housing reforms are working, but don’t go far enough
Bass has done so through a series of executive directives. Upon taking office in December 2022, Bass signed Executive Directive 1, which instructed city departments to complete reviews of 100% affordable housing applications within 60 days of receipt. At the time, it took city officials an average of six to ...
Read latest State Budget Update
Newsom’s Budget Plan Sinks in Deficit Quicksand
Gov. Newsom’s budget problems continue to grow worse. After rolling out his $292 billion proposed state budget plan by arguing with the state’s respected independent budget analyst over the size of the deficit, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has more bad news for Newsom about the deficit. On Friday, Newsom’s ...
Read about new local tax & bond measures
Local voters face 77 tax increases on California’s March ballot
According to its calculation, if all pass the combined hit would be $350 million in direct tax increases and $3.6 billion in bonded indebtedness. The group notes the new debt includes “36 school bonds, 16 transactions and use taxes, 19 parcel taxes, two general obligation bonds, one business license tax, ...
Spending Watch
Reparations: A Financially Unrealistic Proposal That Will Bankrupt California
Reparations: A Financially Unrealistic Proposal That Will Bankrupt California Wayne Winegarden February 2024 With the introduction of its first set of reparations bills, the California legislature is officially considering the recommendations of the California Reparations Report from the state Reparations Task Force.1 Given these introductions, it is imperative to understand ...
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad
Car-less cities campaign is the latest paternalistic fad By Steven Greenhut | February 16, 2024 Many modern urbanists like to claim the great urban writer Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” as one of their own. It’s easy to understand, given that Jacobs was ...
