Mark Moses, senior fellow at the California Policy Center, explores the key factors that made city budgeting easier this year: recent federal aid, slowed spending, and higher-than-expected sales and property tax revenue. Despite these temporary positives, many cities are encountering fiscal disaster, yet they continue pouring money into unnecessary, unhelpful programs (see SJ’s persistent efforts to house homeless residents without addressing root causes—$65+ million recently added to the pot). Moses implores cities to weigh programs’ usefulness against cost for taxpayers/local gov’t.

Read More

In a day where bureaucratic and cultural “two plus two’s” are too-often warped to seemingly equal three or five, truth remains strong. Opportunity Now heard from changemakers SJ councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio and CA Teachers Empowerment Network president Larry Sand about political books that have impacted their tireless searches for veracity, for wisdom, for hope.

Read More

Public policy consultant Todd Royal explains recent trends in global energy consumption. 85% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels (and just 5% is derived from renewable sources). While countless communities worldwide struggle to produce sufficient electricity, why isn’t California working with ample fossil fuel energy sources to “lift billions out of poverty”? Royal discusses discrepancies between social justice rhetoric and political action on Fox & Hounds Daily.

Read More

California Policy Center’s Edward Ring analyzes the devastating Californian wildfires. To prevent future disasters (see: ongoing Oak Fire, currently disrupting Bay Area air quality), experts warned that CA must routinely thin its forests and revive our timber industry. However, politicians’ unhelpful environmental priorities (including electric car mandates) suggest that they aren’t taking our forests’ issues seriously. Politicians should consult timber industry representatives and create evidence-based plans to cultivate forests, asserts Ring.

Read More

What’s the point of decriminalizing cannabis if it’s better financially for local growers and distributors to operate illegally? Laura Hauther of the California Globe examines the “huge barriers to entry” Californian legal cannabis cultivators face, while under-the-table operators only get pitiful slaps on the wrist. San Bernandino County’s sponsored AB 2728 would increase illegal operation fines. But why not reduce red tape for legitimate businessowners?

Read More

California teacher Brenda Lebsack describes her jarring experience at the NEA’s latest teachers’ convention in the California Globe. Not only did the NEA preach and prioritize social justice Wokeism (only four of the 110 motions addressed relate to student academic achievement, as opposed to progressive identity politics), but they excluded and denounced differing perspectives. If educational leaders are shunning critical evaluation and intellectual diversity, Lebsack points out, how—and what—are our local students being taught to think?

Read More

Economist/Hoover Institution fellow Dr. John Cochrane spoke at SJSU Econ dept’s David S. Saurman Provocative Lecture Series on economic reform. Cochrane lays out why outlawing private health and insurance competitors is the antithesis to Silicon Valley-style healthcare advancement. Controversial AB 1400 may have failed again this January, but advocates like SJ’s Ash Kalra haven’t specified if their campaign against the free market—and, according to Cochrane, innovation—is over.

Read More

Andrey Mir, author of Postjournalism and the death of newspapers, asserts that traditional ad-based journalism has evolved out of necessity to rely on digital readership. When editorial once depended on ad revenue, it was essential to prioritize credible and objective reporting so they could reach median/wealthy consumers. Now, publications aiming to attract subscribed readers must play to anger and polarization, morphing our economy’s need for “news supply” to propaganda-esque “news validation.”

Read More