The State's HSR project—voter-approved in 2008 and today, billions of dollars later, still without a single actual track to its name—has proven a masterclass in suspense (whether you call it a slow burn or, along with transit experts, a wildly overbudgeted crash and burn). The Cato Institute points out that once built and operated, CA HSR will inefficiently and excessively waste energy (compared to airplanes and conventional trains) and raise GHG emissions significantly.

Next Wednesday, a new ad hoc committee overseeing the BART Downtown San Jose extension will meet for the first time. In preparation, Bay Area Transportation Working Group (BATWG) members have compiled a list of key questions for the steering committee to address. BATWG's letter, in its entirety, follows.

Carl DeMaio of Reform California unpacks his assertion that our State already fleeces taxpayers for every penny (highest income, sales, gas, and property taxes in America, anyone?) and accordingly shouldn't lower the required supermajority for tax hikes via ACA 1. Meanwhile, SJ's City Council voted this year to undermine Prop 13 protections via ACA 1—likely against constituents' wishes.

Are guaranteed basic income programs really effective if recipients don't pursue financial independence through better job opportunities? But that's what a 2019 study found: Labor market effects were almost nonexistent, as sprinkling moolah didn't lead to more active workplace participation (and really, besides Ellenberg/Cortese, who's surprised?). From San Diego's Bull Oak Capital.

As SF builds more subsidized housing, its sector of homeless residents only gets larger and harder to manage. In WSJ, Manhattan Institute research director Judge Glock elucidates the disconnect: Almost 1/3 of SF's homeless residents moved there after losing their housing, many allured by the easy access to (and hands-off prosecuting approach to) illicit substances.

To address high living costs, SJ insists on archaic market controls that artificially—and dangerously—cap tenants' rents. As Loyola University's Victoria Perrie and Walter Block explain in Political Dialogues, rent control interferes with housing providers' capacity to maintain and profit from their units, which keeps investors out of the market, restricts housing stock, and dampens competitive rent pricing.

At the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, Bari Weiss (Free Press founder and editor) explains how many universities avert constitutional mandates and discriminate against certain students' ideas: via disproportionate “fees,” logistical hurdles, and shaming/pressure. Weiss recalls Stanford speaker Judge Kyle Duncan, whose hecklers were defended by then-DEI dean Steinbach (who, oddly, went on to praise free speech in a WSJ op-ed).

The San Jose City Council voted this year to support ACA 1, which proposes California reduce its two-thirds voter approval requirement to 55% for “infrastructure” projects (read: most tax increases). The Sacramento Business Journal's Ken Monroe points out that small mom-and-pop businesses will be burdened the most if ACA 1 passes, as many can't afford legal teams to parse (more) tax hikes and onerous regulations.

Supe Ellenberg and Sen Cortese are teaming up to pilot a guaranteed income program for 50 homeless SCC students. Local media lauds this purported win for equity, but others like Forbes' Marco Annunziata observe the project's crucial flaw: It enables an imbalanced job market, in which needed but less universally enjoyed jobs (plumber, janitor, welder, etc.) are sidelined—exacerbating skill shortages.

Earlier this year at the SJ City Council, Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association (SVTA) board member Elizabeth Brierly advocated for the Taxpayer Protection and Gov't Accountability Act, which would protect Prop 13 against loopholes. For pro-Prop 13 voters like SCC's, Brierly asserts that the Act would empower them to keep gov't in their lane (and, phew, budget).