Blog
Blog
Spending Watch
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much Wayne Winegarden and Nikhil Agarwal May 2025 As we noted in an earlier Spending Watch piece, growing economic volatility will likely cause revenue growth to be much weaker than expected for the upcoming FY2025-26 budget. It is, consequently, fiscally irresponsible for ...
Blog
Read about the latest bill attacking worker freedom
Seeking to Override Voters, Sacramento Tries Again to Unionize Gig Workers
Assembly Bill 1340 has, as reported by Politico, “cleared its first hurdle … deepening a yearslong clash between organized labor and major California-based tech firms.” The “clash” was set off by Assembly Bill 5 in 2019, a predatory law that was a gift to organized labor that lusted for the membership ...
Blog
China Is Preparing to Go to War in Space
READ THE PDF China Is Preparing to Go to War in Space On April 24, a Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China and carried the three taikonauts of the Shenzhou-20 mission to the Tiangong space station. There, they replaced the Shenzhou-19 ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Seattle’s ‘social housing’ plan struggles to get off the ground
Two years ago, voters approved Initiative 135, which created the Seattle Social Housing Developer. Supporters of Initiative 135 argued the Seattle Social Housing Developer would be “a new, powerful tool to counter” the city’s housing crisis by empowering a governmental entity to develop and acquire properties for housing. Explained the ...
Blog
Urbanists can slow but not stop our transportation progress
Urbanists can slow but not stop our transportation progress By Marc Joffe | May 1, 2025 California is the prime battleground between transportation innovation and legacy mass transit. While Silicon Valley is rolling out driverless taxis and testing flying cars, urbanists and transit unions are seeking more taxpayer funding to ...
Blog
Newsom Gets One Right on State Return to Office Order
Virtually every other state and most private sector employers in California and nationally returned to normal employment arrangements years ago. A February Bay Area Council survey showed 84 percent of private sector employers have already implemented long-term in-person work policies, and just 6 person of employers do not require employees ...
Blog
Read about the latest bill to weaken CA's public safety laws
AB 622 – Early Release for Violent Offenders
Historically, an inmate serving a 25 to life sentence for murder is eligible for parole review 13 months prior to their 25th year in custody, adjusted for time in custody prior to sentencing. This is known as the Minimum Parole Eligibility Date (MEPD). After the passage of Prop 57, the ...
Blog
QALYs Put Patients Last
In his latest entry for the American Action Forum’s “Reality Check-Up: The Truth About Single-Payer Systems,” Michael Baker offers an excellent primer on this heartless metric. QALYs attempt to assign a monetary value to life. A year in perfect health equals one QALY. A year with illness or disability counts ...
Blog
Newsom’s Diaper Plan Stinks
Why a new program when the old one is working ok? The state argues that there are gaps in the existing program, which targets low-income parents. Instead of simply filling the gaps, the state wants to impose some elaborate scheme that is akin to killing a gnat with a shotgun. ...
Blog
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis by Rafael Perez | April 24, 2025 There are two uncomfortable truths that have settled in after the smoke cleared from the Los Angeles County fires. The first is that the public will pay for a significant share of the damage. The ...
Spending Watch
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much
AB 4: A Bad Idea That Costs Too Much Wayne Winegarden and Nikhil Agarwal May 2025 As we noted in an earlier Spending Watch piece, growing economic volatility will likely cause revenue growth to be much weaker than expected for the upcoming FY2025-26 budget. It is, consequently, fiscally irresponsible for ...
Read about the latest bill attacking worker freedom
Seeking to Override Voters, Sacramento Tries Again to Unionize Gig Workers
Assembly Bill 1340 has, as reported by Politico, “cleared its first hurdle … deepening a yearslong clash between organized labor and major California-based tech firms.” The “clash” was set off by Assembly Bill 5 in 2019, a predatory law that was a gift to organized labor that lusted for the membership ...
China Is Preparing to Go to War in Space
READ THE PDF China Is Preparing to Go to War in Space On April 24, a Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China and carried the three taikonauts of the Shenzhou-20 mission to the Tiangong space station. There, they replaced the Shenzhou-19 ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Seattle’s ‘social housing’ plan struggles to get off the ground
Two years ago, voters approved Initiative 135, which created the Seattle Social Housing Developer. Supporters of Initiative 135 argued the Seattle Social Housing Developer would be “a new, powerful tool to counter” the city’s housing crisis by empowering a governmental entity to develop and acquire properties for housing. Explained the ...
Urbanists can slow but not stop our transportation progress
Urbanists can slow but not stop our transportation progress By Marc Joffe | May 1, 2025 California is the prime battleground between transportation innovation and legacy mass transit. While Silicon Valley is rolling out driverless taxis and testing flying cars, urbanists and transit unions are seeking more taxpayer funding to ...
Newsom Gets One Right on State Return to Office Order
Virtually every other state and most private sector employers in California and nationally returned to normal employment arrangements years ago. A February Bay Area Council survey showed 84 percent of private sector employers have already implemented long-term in-person work policies, and just 6 person of employers do not require employees ...
Read about the latest bill to weaken CA's public safety laws
AB 622 – Early Release for Violent Offenders
Historically, an inmate serving a 25 to life sentence for murder is eligible for parole review 13 months prior to their 25th year in custody, adjusted for time in custody prior to sentencing. This is known as the Minimum Parole Eligibility Date (MEPD). After the passage of Prop 57, the ...
QALYs Put Patients Last
In his latest entry for the American Action Forum’s “Reality Check-Up: The Truth About Single-Payer Systems,” Michael Baker offers an excellent primer on this heartless metric. QALYs attempt to assign a monetary value to life. A year in perfect health equals one QALY. A year with illness or disability counts ...
Newsom’s Diaper Plan Stinks
Why a new program when the old one is working ok? The state argues that there are gaps in the existing program, which targets low-income parents. Instead of simply filling the gaps, the state wants to impose some elaborate scheme that is akin to killing a gnat with a shotgun. ...
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis
Examining the roots of California’s ongoing insurance crisis by Rafael Perez | April 24, 2025 There are two uncomfortable truths that have settled in after the smoke cleared from the Los Angeles County fires. The first is that the public will pay for a significant share of the damage. The ...
