In March of last year, policy analyst and Opp Now contributor Randal O'Toole gave testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on public transit's doom spiral. Instead of subsidizing archaic, inefficient systems like BART, local and federal gov't should allow them to burgeon—or die—according to the free market.
Read MoreJoe Dehn and Brian Holtz—respectively the Santa Clara County Libertarian Party's chair and secretary—parse last Tuesday's vote by the SJ City Council to boost city workers' paychecks by 14.5% over three years. Raising salaries that are, by and large, already competitive creates short-term goodwill between pols/Labor, but needlessly shifts funds away from core services. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreArizona's public colleges just bid adieu to requiring DEI statements in the application process; and two CA lawsuits could change things up for local professors. SJSU Anthropology prof and National Association of Scholars board member Elizabeth Weiss breaks down these developments—and what's turning people off the once-universally lauded DEI statements. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreWSJ's Konrad Putzier and Will Parker break down an overlooked economic development roiling the housing market: Property investors are getting crushed by the combo of rising interest rates and diminishing apartment-building returns, as local Housing Depts like SJ's try to suffocate landlords via expanded rent control laws.
Read MoreA formerly unhoused man relays in the American Spectator that homelessness isn't solved in a snap by having enough gov't beds (sorry, SCC Housing First devotees). Instead, municipalities should heed how the community's freewheeling substance abuse keeps individuals away from shelters, job opportunities, and peaceful integration into society.
Read MoreTim Rosenberger, Jr., former president of the Federalist Society's Stanford chapter, analyzes the ABA's suggestion that colleges develop policy against “disruptive behavior that hinders free expression.” They mean well, says TJR, but fiascos like the Judge Duncan Incident will only stop if institutions take a firm stand. The ABA Journal's press release, and TJR's Opp Now exclusive statement, below.
Read MoreIn this Opp Now exclusive, Austrian and former White House economist Mike ter Maat unpacks SCC and Supe Ellenberg's latest guaranteed basic income press release—which announces upcoming payouts for young moms, unhoused students, and “justice-involved” residents. Ter Maat argues: Access to capital won't address underlying causes of poverty—and it's “deceptive” to dip into emergency taxes for initiatives that aren't empirically supported.
Read MoreAs Los Angeles' Covid-era eviction moratorium draws to a close, tenants struggle to pay heaping rent bills accumulated from up to 1.5 years. Meanwhile, landlords are on tenterhooks waiting to get reimbursed for long-standing maintenance, tax, and insurance expenses. The Globe's Evan Symon asks the only sensible question for CA'n lawmakers: Who's winning in this situation?
Read MoreFor Slow Boring, Harvard gov't student Maya Bodnick outlines concerning trends she's observed with high school debate competitions. Rather than encouraging on-topic, evidence-based discourses, judges are more and more rewarding ideological “capitalism bad, critical theory good” arguments that often blow off the assigned topic.
Read MoreThe SF Standard breaks down SF's 2022 Boudin recall and Alameda County's ongoing Price recall efforts, both spearheaded by Asian locals fed up with soft “alternatives” to prosecution and jailing. Though deemed caring and progressive by the Left, these strategies have only seen anti-Asian hate crimes explode.
Read MoreLess than five months after the City Council rejected the Dept's misguided COPA proposal, a key citizens housing commission declined to approve the Housing Department's latest moves to turn SJ into a twin of collapsing SF. The commission rejected the HD's proposals to expand rent control and other misguided interventionist housing policies. The Opp Now team reports in this exclusive.
Read MoreSheridan Swanson, Research Manager at California Policy Center, surveys SJ's union contract kerfuffle. She finds that while Mayor Mahan was pursuing the firm, fiscally responsible approach to union negotiations—his colleagues on the Council wimped out. An Opp Now exclusive.
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