Blog
Blog
Costly union-only agreements result in fewer city projects
From street repairs to building construction, municipal infrastructure projects are costly, but often necessary, endeavors. To get them done in the most cost-effective manner possible, city taxpayers are best served by having open, competitive markets for contracts to complete such projects efficiently and at the best price. This might sound like ...
Blog
$25 Minimum Wage for All “Healthcare Workers” Would Increase Hospital Closures
While those who do these jobs are hardworking and deserve to be paid well for doing such tough work, forcibly increasing the minimum wage to an unaffordable $25 per hour will cause increased financial strain on hospitals and healthcare facilities already struggling to keep doors open. In the current economic ...
Blog
Latest San Francisco Public Bank Proposal Doomed to Fail
According to the proposal prepared by consultants, the bank would focus “its initial lending activities on affordable housing development and affordable homeownership, local enterprises (small businesses), and green investments and environmental justice.” The “fundamental need for a city-owned bank,” it says, “stems from the historic inability of traditional financial institutions ...
Agriculture
Water fines for farmers will not keep the wells from running dry
When a profoundly important resource like water is no longer abundant, prioritizing where water goes becomes challenging. The California Assembly is considering legislation that would punish people for over-using water during droughts. The bill, however, does not differentiate between water “needs” and water “wants.” Specifically, food producers and municipalities would ...
Blog
Here Come the Jetsons: Cities Developing in Futuristic Ways
Every since humans invented the built environment, and cities developed along major crossroads and on the forks of navigable rivers, meeting the challenge of providing adequate transportation has been a nonnegotiable prerequisite to continued growth and prosperity.
Blog
State Budget Update: Scandal, Calls to Resist Cuts Mask State’s Growing Budget Shortfall
California’s budget problem is growing at an alarming rate. A new report recently released by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office forecasts, based on updated revenue projections that the stat will face “a large budget problem by about $7 billion” over what Gov. Newsom projects for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal ...
Blog
How parental choice can help save our urban areas
The following is an address delivered by Lance Izumi at the recent 2023 Pacific Research Institute Sacramento Conference at the Sutter Club. California’s urban areas are in decline, but empirical evidence shows that one possible solution holds out hope for the state’s distressed cities – expanding parental choice in education. ...
Blog
The Ugly Californian
There’s no shortage of stories. A woman and her boyfriend who moved from California to Montana in 2020 “changed their licenses right away.” In “the most competitive race in recent memory” for the mayor’s office in Boise, Idaho, one candidate “ran on a very simple platform,” the Los Angeles Times ...
Blog
Biden’s California Economy: Calling for national rent control
When running for president, Joe Biden often praised California’s governance and promised to nationalize many of the state’s policies. While Biden mostly has promoted the state’s infamous Assembly Bill 5, which was an attempt to largely outlaw independent contracting, the president also seeks to mimic the state in another way: ...
Blog
Progressives misread housing market with attack on investors
There seems to be mild panic regarding investors buying up housing. The Washington Post reported last year that, “investors bought a record share of homes in 2021,” almost “one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas” as well as “the most in at least two decades.” Often the ...
Costly union-only agreements result in fewer city projects
From street repairs to building construction, municipal infrastructure projects are costly, but often necessary, endeavors. To get them done in the most cost-effective manner possible, city taxpayers are best served by having open, competitive markets for contracts to complete such projects efficiently and at the best price. This might sound like ...
$25 Minimum Wage for All “Healthcare Workers” Would Increase Hospital Closures
While those who do these jobs are hardworking and deserve to be paid well for doing such tough work, forcibly increasing the minimum wage to an unaffordable $25 per hour will cause increased financial strain on hospitals and healthcare facilities already struggling to keep doors open. In the current economic ...
Latest San Francisco Public Bank Proposal Doomed to Fail
According to the proposal prepared by consultants, the bank would focus “its initial lending activities on affordable housing development and affordable homeownership, local enterprises (small businesses), and green investments and environmental justice.” The “fundamental need for a city-owned bank,” it says, “stems from the historic inability of traditional financial institutions ...
Water fines for farmers will not keep the wells from running dry
When a profoundly important resource like water is no longer abundant, prioritizing where water goes becomes challenging. The California Assembly is considering legislation that would punish people for over-using water during droughts. The bill, however, does not differentiate between water “needs” and water “wants.” Specifically, food producers and municipalities would ...
Here Come the Jetsons: Cities Developing in Futuristic Ways
Every since humans invented the built environment, and cities developed along major crossroads and on the forks of navigable rivers, meeting the challenge of providing adequate transportation has been a nonnegotiable prerequisite to continued growth and prosperity.
State Budget Update: Scandal, Calls to Resist Cuts Mask State’s Growing Budget Shortfall
California’s budget problem is growing at an alarming rate. A new report recently released by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office forecasts, based on updated revenue projections that the stat will face “a large budget problem by about $7 billion” over what Gov. Newsom projects for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal ...
How parental choice can help save our urban areas
The following is an address delivered by Lance Izumi at the recent 2023 Pacific Research Institute Sacramento Conference at the Sutter Club. California’s urban areas are in decline, but empirical evidence shows that one possible solution holds out hope for the state’s distressed cities – expanding parental choice in education. ...
The Ugly Californian
There’s no shortage of stories. A woman and her boyfriend who moved from California to Montana in 2020 “changed their licenses right away.” In “the most competitive race in recent memory” for the mayor’s office in Boise, Idaho, one candidate “ran on a very simple platform,” the Los Angeles Times ...
Biden’s California Economy: Calling for national rent control
When running for president, Joe Biden often praised California’s governance and promised to nationalize many of the state’s policies. While Biden mostly has promoted the state’s infamous Assembly Bill 5, which was an attempt to largely outlaw independent contracting, the president also seeks to mimic the state in another way: ...
Progressives misread housing market with attack on investors
There seems to be mild panic regarding investors buying up housing. The Washington Post reported last year that, “investors bought a record share of homes in 2021,” almost “one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas” as well as “the most in at least two decades.” Often the ...
