Infrastructure
Blog
Sacramento Taxes Nearly Everything. Is Drinking Water Next?
Apparently, there’s nothing so sacred nor so ordinary that Sacramento won’t tax it. Possibly next up on the tax table is a first-ever levy on drinking water. During last year’s legislative session, lawmakers proposed through Senate Bill 623 a 95-cent monthly tax on water bills. The revenue, about $200 million, ...
Blog
Politicians Want to “Wet Their Beaks” in Taxing Uber and Lyft
Uber and Lyft have generated billions in gross revenue in California. It’s a dazzling data point that has caught the eyes of some politicians who are unable to resist the covetous urges that arise when they watch commercial enterprises thrive. Elected officials regard Uber, Lyft, and other ridesharing companies — ...
Business & Economics
Joel Fox on PRI’s California Business Climate Survey
Survey: Biz Execs Down on CA A survey of business executives in highly sought after industries such as clean tech and research & development conclude that California has a number of problems that prevent businesses from locating or expanding in the state. The Pacific Research Institute survey discovered that housing and real ...
Blog
What a Difference a Year Makes: A Washington Update
For many years now, Sally Pipes and I make a trip to Washington in the early part of the year to take the political and policy pulse of the nation’s capital. We meet with members of Congress, their staffs, and executive branch officials to get firsthand knowledge of the policy ...
Business & Economics
New PRI Survey: Housing, Education, Business Climate Top Reasons Why Industries Aren’t Moving to California
New PRI Survey: Housing, Education, Business Climate Top Reasons Why Highly-Desired Industries Aren’t Moving to California Survey Gives Insight into Location Decisions of R&D, Clean Tech, Manufacturing Execs Business executives, including those in clean tech, R&D, manufacturing, and other industries highly-desired by California legislators, say the high costs of housing ...
Blog
The Sky is Falling in Sacramento over Proposals to Increase Federal Transportation Dollars
Recently, President Trump unveiled his long-awaited transportation infrastructure funding plan. His plan includes $200 billion in new federal funds and having local and state governments and public-private partnerships pay the bulk of new transportation projects. As is usually the case with anything the President proposes, the howls of protest began ...
Blog
Desalination Should Be Part of California’s Water Future
In California, we seem to be living in the days of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” As Steve Milloy said last week, there’s water, water everywhere, but almost nary a drop to drink. California has “840 miles of coastline,” tweeted Milloy, the author who is primarily responsible for giving ...
Blog
Does Amazon Already Know Location of its Next Headquarters?
When it comes to choosing vendors and making other business decisions, we’ve all had our secret preferences – the tax attorneys who saved our competitors a lot of money, the website developers from our old firm, the office space next to our favorite wine bar. Oftentimes, we’ve already made a ...
Blog
LA Takes Crown Again as Nation’s Worst Traffic
Ask anyone who drives even on a semi-regular basis in Los Angeles which city has the worst traffic in the world and the answer will invariably be “Los Angeles” with no moment of hesitation. By no coincidence, a transportation analytics firm says the same thing. Inrix, which provides “a data-rich ...
Blog
Will Funding for New Water Storage Be Hijacked at the Last Minute?
The effort to build more water storage in California just hit another setback. The bureaucrats at the California Water Commission just released their scorecards for 11 proposed water projects from around the state. Their scorecard – which supposedly ranks their “public benefit” to California taxpayers – ranked two critical statewide ...
Sacramento Taxes Nearly Everything. Is Drinking Water Next?
Apparently, there’s nothing so sacred nor so ordinary that Sacramento won’t tax it. Possibly next up on the tax table is a first-ever levy on drinking water. During last year’s legislative session, lawmakers proposed through Senate Bill 623 a 95-cent monthly tax on water bills. The revenue, about $200 million, ...
Politicians Want to “Wet Their Beaks” in Taxing Uber and Lyft
Uber and Lyft have generated billions in gross revenue in California. It’s a dazzling data point that has caught the eyes of some politicians who are unable to resist the covetous urges that arise when they watch commercial enterprises thrive. Elected officials regard Uber, Lyft, and other ridesharing companies — ...
Joel Fox on PRI’s California Business Climate Survey
Survey: Biz Execs Down on CA A survey of business executives in highly sought after industries such as clean tech and research & development conclude that California has a number of problems that prevent businesses from locating or expanding in the state. The Pacific Research Institute survey discovered that housing and real ...
What a Difference a Year Makes: A Washington Update
For many years now, Sally Pipes and I make a trip to Washington in the early part of the year to take the political and policy pulse of the nation’s capital. We meet with members of Congress, their staffs, and executive branch officials to get firsthand knowledge of the policy ...
New PRI Survey: Housing, Education, Business Climate Top Reasons Why Industries Aren’t Moving to California
New PRI Survey: Housing, Education, Business Climate Top Reasons Why Highly-Desired Industries Aren’t Moving to California Survey Gives Insight into Location Decisions of R&D, Clean Tech, Manufacturing Execs Business executives, including those in clean tech, R&D, manufacturing, and other industries highly-desired by California legislators, say the high costs of housing ...
The Sky is Falling in Sacramento over Proposals to Increase Federal Transportation Dollars
Recently, President Trump unveiled his long-awaited transportation infrastructure funding plan. His plan includes $200 billion in new federal funds and having local and state governments and public-private partnerships pay the bulk of new transportation projects. As is usually the case with anything the President proposes, the howls of protest began ...
Desalination Should Be Part of California’s Water Future
In California, we seem to be living in the days of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” As Steve Milloy said last week, there’s water, water everywhere, but almost nary a drop to drink. California has “840 miles of coastline,” tweeted Milloy, the author who is primarily responsible for giving ...
Does Amazon Already Know Location of its Next Headquarters?
When it comes to choosing vendors and making other business decisions, we’ve all had our secret preferences – the tax attorneys who saved our competitors a lot of money, the website developers from our old firm, the office space next to our favorite wine bar. Oftentimes, we’ve already made a ...
LA Takes Crown Again as Nation’s Worst Traffic
Ask anyone who drives even on a semi-regular basis in Los Angeles which city has the worst traffic in the world and the answer will invariably be “Los Angeles” with no moment of hesitation. By no coincidence, a transportation analytics firm says the same thing. Inrix, which provides “a data-rich ...
Will Funding for New Water Storage Be Hijacked at the Last Minute?
The effort to build more water storage in California just hit another setback. The bureaucrats at the California Water Commission just released their scorecards for 11 proposed water projects from around the state. Their scorecard – which supposedly ranks their “public benefit” to California taxpayers – ranked two critical statewide ...
