The federal government’s most powerful economic weapon is the tax code, and its most pressing problem is the ailing American Dream. Enter “opportunity zones,” economically distressed communities where new investments can receive preferential tax treatment. The incentives were quietly inserted into last year’s tax-reform bill. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently predicted they could prompt $100 […]
Strong consumer and government spending powered economic growth in the third quarter, although a warning sign about the outlook emerged in the form of weak business investment. Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S.—grew at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of 3.5% from July through September, the Commerce […]
California was built by people with aspirations, many of them lacking cultural polish or elite educations, but dedicated to hard work, innovation, family and community. A large number came from other countries or poor backgrounds: sharecroppers from the South, campesinos from Mexico, people fleeing communism and poverty in Asia, escapees from Hitler’s Europe or Okies […]
UTC Aerospace Systems plans to wind down manufacturing at its Chula Vista aircraft plant beginning early next year, eliminating around 300 jobs. The company — a division of Farmington, Conn.-based conglomerate United Technologies — said the decision stems from ending production of certain commercial aircraft models. The Chula Vista plant builds aerodynamic engine pods and […]
As always, the state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. And check out the Transparent California website to see the unbelievably large pay and benefit packages received by California’s “public servants” if you really want to look at where our money goes. This initiative is just a chance to prop up the state’s […]
To hang on to state funding, Los Angeles will eliminate a disputed requirement that gave city politicians the power to block funding for homeless housing in their districts. The decision ends a longstanding practice that has drawn criticism from nonprofit groups that assist poor and homeless people: Under city regulations, L.A. has required developers seeking […]
The rise of the U.S. to economic greatness is an extraordinary story. But it is a story with a sting in the tail. Productivity growth in the U.S. has all but stalled in recent years. The number of new companies being created has reached a modern low. Geographical mobility has been in decline for three […]
Few would doubt that California’s single most important economic/political issue is a growing housing shortage which distresses millions of Californians and is the largest single factor in the state’s highest-in-the-nation poverty rate. The state says we need to be building 180,000 new housing units each year to keep up with population growth, replace housing that’s […]
To Moenius, the rise of robots in warehouses, factories and fast-food restaurants presents danger for places like the Inland Empire, where most residents work in logistics and the service industry and just 21% of adults have a four-year degree. As technology transforms the nature of work in California, how do people most at risk find […]
In California, squatters can claim legal title to someone else’s property through an arcane legal procedure known as “adverse possession.” The law, enacted in 1872, originally was meant for abandoned rural properties that had gone fallow. In modern times, it’s mostly cited when there is a dispute over property lines. However, squatters can use it […]
The best available evidence about the potential effects of these programs comes from the federal government’s “negative income tax” experiment. The experiment, which ran from 1968 to 1980, consisted of four random, controlled trials across six states designed to test the negative income tax. Similar to the universal basic income, a negative income tax guarantees […]
In the imaginations of its boosters, and for many outside the state, California is often seen as the role model for the future. But, sadly, California is also moving backward toward a more feudal society. Feudalism was about the concentration of wealth and power in a relative handful of people. Historically, California created fortunes for […]
If you add up all the voter approved new taxes in November 2016, state and local, you have to include not only $5.0 billion in new local taxes and payments on local bonds per year, you also have to add the voter approved statewide measures. That would include Prop. 51, adding yet another $9.0 billion […]
Cities have been hit the hardest by increases in mandatory payments to the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) as it tries to shrink its large “unfunded liability.” City officials have repeatedly complained about the specter of insolvency if pension payments continue to grow and the League of California Cities has labeled the situation “unsustainable.” […]
With increased tax revenue and economic growth, why are local governments asking voters to approve more taxes? A report by the League of California Cities notes that city pension costs will increase more than 50 percent by the fiscal year 2024-25, and will reach “unsustainable levels.” The report states: “Often, revenue growth from the improved […]