One of the most frustrating contradictions inherent in the policies being enacted by California’s one-party state goes something like this: We are inviting the welfare cases of America and the expatriates of the world to move here, while simultaneously enacting environmental policies that make it extremely time consuming and expensive to build anything. No wonder there’s a “housing crisis.” Until demand...

Sacramento The media coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Janus decision, striking down all mandatory union dues-collections as an infringement of the First Amendment, has been met with weeping and gnashing of teeth from union leaders. In their view, the conservative majority’s ruling is an assault on the ability of union members to negotiate...

New Jersey’s police and fire unions have demanded that the state give them control over their own pension destiny, and have convinced the Legislature to transfer management of their pension fund to a union-controlled board of trustees. Some Garden State residents have denounced the plan as the equivalent of giving unions a “blank check,” given...

Gov. Jerry Brown has often expressed his vision of California as America’s – maybe the world’s – leader in technology, climate change, anti-smoking campaigns, environmental protection, health care for the poor. But California is inarguably the leader in one category: Two California cities are among the world’s worst for traffic congestion. Los Angeles ranked No....

For Immediate Release January 11, 2017 California Policy Center Marc Joffe, marc@calpolicycenter.org (415) 578-0558 A landmark study of California’s finances reveals the state’s debt burden is approaching the levels of Italy and Portugal, where debt crises in 2011 and 2012 drove the Eurozone countries to the brink of collapse. The findings come a day after...

On Halloween 2014, Stanton, California, city manager James Box wrote to the city’s residents. City officials were at the end of a year-long campaign to stampede residents toward acceptance of Measure GG, creating a one-cent city sales tax, the first of its kind in Orange County. They had warned residents that failure to approve the...

For Immediate Release July 12, 2016 California Policy Center Contact: Will Swaim Will@CalPolicyCenter.org (714) 573-2231 Stock market overvaluation will lead to ‘major correction,’ trigger benefits cuts and tax hikes SACRAMENTO, Calif. – There are more red flags for public-sector pension funds that rely on stock investments for most of their income, a new California Policy Center...

The California Department of Industrial Relations does not determine state prevailing wage rates for construction trades by surveying contractors or workers or by using statistics gathered by the California Economic Development Department. By law, the state uses union agreements to set prevailing wages. Thus, the prevailing wage is always the “union wage.” And the geographical...