Corporate Profits Are at a Historic High The economic malaise characterizing the years after the financial crisis has largely bypassed corporate America. Corporate profits are currently at a historic high of 11 percent of GDP (see fig. 1 below). Expert speculation abounds as to the causes and implications of this trend. Many commentators, seeing these...
Before discussing how Big Food operates today, let’s take a moment to look back at how agriculture operated in the US South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Viola Goode Liddell, daughter of a cotton salesman, described the system: When an Black Belt farmer sent his cotton down river to Mobile, he . . . had to take what he...
To our progressive friends, it seemed like a century of advocating for government-sponsored universal health care reached fruition when the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land. But triumph turned to tragedy when Progressivism’s signature accomplishment blew up on the launch pad. Not only did this make a shambles of our wounded president’s...
There is no substitute to growing California’s private sector economy. Growing the economy has substantial benefits: The private sector economy is the only source of jobs and tax revenues. It’s better for everyone to raise tax revenues by growing the economy rather than through tax rate increases and new taxes. A growing private sector economy also...
Editor’s Note: This article by Jason Mercier outlines the principles of optimal tax policies in Washington state. It should be of interest to Californians because it offers a useful perspective on our own tax policies. Washington has succeeded in one key area, “balance and reliability,” because their three primary tax revenues, based on sales, gross...
Editor’s Note: This essay by John Goodman makes explicit, in the context of the federal passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act, a phenomenon that is alive and growing in California. We usually call it corporatism, or crony-capitalism, but the endpoint of the trends, usually described using euphemisms, is economic fascism. Where communism might be correctly...
Editor’s Note: Anyone who is still wondering whether or not California’s trillion dollars of state and local government debt is a problem, or, by extension, whether or not the $15 trillion of federal government debt, or the $50+ trillion of total market debt in the U.S., is invited to read the following article. While reading,...
The People of California want prosperity but most are not getting it. The California Policy Center has established this new website, the Prosperity Forum, to explore the reasons why Californians are not as prosperous as they once were. By making prosperity the primary focus, other objectives, which sometimes dominate our State’s politics, can be placed...
Historically, progressives were seen as partisans for the people, eager to help the working and middle classes achieve upward mobility even at expense of the ultra-rich. But in California, and much of the country, progressivism has morphed into a political movement that, more often than not, effectively squelches the aspirations of the majority, in large...
Have you ever wanted to know if your child is attending a chronically underperforming school? Well, start spreading the word: the list is out. Due to a law I wrote while serving in the California Senate, the 2010 Open Enrollment Act identifies the 1,000 chronically underperforming schools in California and empowers parents of kids enrolled...
When examining policy options that might help restore a financially sustainable public sector, reformers tend to focus on what may be politely referred to as austerity programs. And no effective package of reforms can ignore austerity measures; cutting government programs, cutting government staff, and cutting government employee compensation. At the same time, an essential element...
In his second inaugural address, President Obama promised to “respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” The crowd roared. “Environmentalists Hail Obama Climate Change Focus,” proclaimed an Associated Press headline. Three weeks later, in his State of the Union address, the...
Welfare in America is a classic example of government failure. The combined federal, state and county welfare programs have had enormous destructive economic, social and moral consequences. In the absence of significant change, the Heritage Foundation projects their cost at $10.6 Trillion over the next decade. The initial beneficiaries of government aid were widows and...
Here’s a documented comparison of California taxes and economic climate with the rest of the states. The news is bad, and getting worse. But the state and local government policies that created an unaffordable California can be reversed: PERSONAL INCOME TAX: Prior to Prop 30 passing in Nov. 2012, CA already had the 3rd worst...