Wildfires
California
Steven Greenhut – Bail Reform, Bailouts, and Brown’s Legacy . . . Oh My! The 2018 Legislative Session in Review
Steven Greenhut of the R Street Institute shares his thoughts on the just-completed 2018 legislative session and Jerry Brown’s legacy as governor, the second go-around. We discuss wildfire response legislation, bail reform, 100 percent renewable energy mandates, single-payer health care, soda taxes, and other hot issues.
Blog
Kilauea Volcanic Eruptions Spike Pensions for Hawaii’s Emergency Workers
“Pension risk includes lava,” said Keli’i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, a sister free-market think tank in Hawaii. Recently, the Grassroot Institute hosted an event titled “Navigating risk at Hawaii’s public pension system.” Thom Williams, executive director of the Hawaii Employees’ Retirement System (ERS), discussed how unpredictable events such ...
Blog
Taxifornia This Week
By Rowena Itchon and Tim Anaya This week, the Assembly and Senate face a key deadline. All bills originating must pass their “house of origin” by the end of the week (i.e., bills introduced in the Assembly must pass the Assembly). The Appropriations Committees of both houses weighed in on ...
Blog
Another Way Government Is Playing Car Salesman – Giveaways to Power Companies
The government is not doing a very effective job of playing car salesman. Despite providing federal manufacturing grants and loans worth $40.7 billion and other $2 billion in federal tax credits to subsidize electric car purchases, electric cars, or zero emission vehicles, are just 0.5 percent of the marketplace. California ...
Business & Economics
Ian Adams – Grading California’s Wildfire Response
Ian Adams of the R Street Institute joins us to talk about the legislative response to California’s recent devastating wildfires and the role the free market can play in helping people to rebuild their lives and avoid experiencing a future catastrophe.
Business & Economics
Reducing the Burden from Occupational Licensing Regulations Will Help Consumers
As President Reagan famously noted, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The expanding reach of occupational licensing regulations exemplify this maxim. People in a growing number of occupations now require the permission of the government to work in ...
Blog
Higher Prices During Crises – Is It Really Price Gouging?
On New Year’s Day, months after wildfires had started their deadly march through California, the Los Angeles Times published an article headlined “After the flames, allegations of rent-gouging fly in devastated wine country communities.” It did not include a single defense of higher prices, which indicates bias, or economic ignorance ...
California
What California Should Do To Ease Housing Crisis
In September, Sacramento lawmakers passed more than a dozen bills aiming to begin healing the state’s housing sore. It was, to their thinking, “Housing Day” in California. Two weeks later, legislators joined Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco as he signed what he called “15 good bills.” “Today, California begins ...
Blog
Housing shortage goes from dire to desperate after wildfires
A few months ago, Tim Anaya and I interviewed for PRI’s podcast Farhad Zabihi, a math professor at the College of Marin, who had been house hunting for nearly a year in Marin County. Marin is just south of Napa and Sonoma — two of the hardest hit counties in ...
Blog
The Political Aftermath of California’s Wildfires
The amount of time it takes a celebrity of the political left to blame a natural disaster on global warming can usually be measured in seconds. Gov. Jerry Brown quickly answered the challenge last week by coldly politicizing the deadly Northern California wildfires. Following the master blueprint Chicago Mayor Rahm ...
Steven Greenhut – Bail Reform, Bailouts, and Brown’s Legacy . . . Oh My! The 2018 Legislative Session in Review
Steven Greenhut of the R Street Institute shares his thoughts on the just-completed 2018 legislative session and Jerry Brown’s legacy as governor, the second go-around. We discuss wildfire response legislation, bail reform, 100 percent renewable energy mandates, single-payer health care, soda taxes, and other hot issues.
Kilauea Volcanic Eruptions Spike Pensions for Hawaii’s Emergency Workers
“Pension risk includes lava,” said Keli’i Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute, a sister free-market think tank in Hawaii. Recently, the Grassroot Institute hosted an event titled “Navigating risk at Hawaii’s public pension system.” Thom Williams, executive director of the Hawaii Employees’ Retirement System (ERS), discussed how unpredictable events such ...
Taxifornia This Week
By Rowena Itchon and Tim Anaya This week, the Assembly and Senate face a key deadline. All bills originating must pass their “house of origin” by the end of the week (i.e., bills introduced in the Assembly must pass the Assembly). The Appropriations Committees of both houses weighed in on ...
Another Way Government Is Playing Car Salesman – Giveaways to Power Companies
The government is not doing a very effective job of playing car salesman. Despite providing federal manufacturing grants and loans worth $40.7 billion and other $2 billion in federal tax credits to subsidize electric car purchases, electric cars, or zero emission vehicles, are just 0.5 percent of the marketplace. California ...
Ian Adams – Grading California’s Wildfire Response
Ian Adams of the R Street Institute joins us to talk about the legislative response to California’s recent devastating wildfires and the role the free market can play in helping people to rebuild their lives and avoid experiencing a future catastrophe.
Reducing the Burden from Occupational Licensing Regulations Will Help Consumers
As President Reagan famously noted, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The expanding reach of occupational licensing regulations exemplify this maxim. People in a growing number of occupations now require the permission of the government to work in ...
Higher Prices During Crises – Is It Really Price Gouging?
On New Year’s Day, months after wildfires had started their deadly march through California, the Los Angeles Times published an article headlined “After the flames, allegations of rent-gouging fly in devastated wine country communities.” It did not include a single defense of higher prices, which indicates bias, or economic ignorance ...
What California Should Do To Ease Housing Crisis
In September, Sacramento lawmakers passed more than a dozen bills aiming to begin healing the state’s housing sore. It was, to their thinking, “Housing Day” in California. Two weeks later, legislators joined Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco as he signed what he called “15 good bills.” “Today, California begins ...
Housing shortage goes from dire to desperate after wildfires
A few months ago, Tim Anaya and I interviewed for PRI’s podcast Farhad Zabihi, a math professor at the College of Marin, who had been house hunting for nearly a year in Marin County. Marin is just south of Napa and Sonoma — two of the hardest hit counties in ...
The Political Aftermath of California’s Wildfires
The amount of time it takes a celebrity of the political left to blame a natural disaster on global warming can usually be measured in seconds. Gov. Jerry Brown quickly answered the challenge last week by coldly politicizing the deadly Northern California wildfires. Following the master blueprint Chicago Mayor Rahm ...
