In recent months, the financial press has expressed growing fear of an economy-wrecking crisis in commercial real estate. The specific concern is that as the trillions in mortgages on America’s non-residential buildings come up for renewal over the next few…
WASHINGTON — Fiscal restraint is dead. The federal government spends $1.5 trillion more than it takes in. The national debt is $34.5 trillion. That’s more than $100,000 in debt for every man, woman and child in America. No worries. On…
SACRAMENTO — President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was mostly about political posturing (and proving that he was still alive and kicking) rather than policy, but one of the few granular policy areas he touched on involved something…
California’s Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act gives voters the final approval on future taxes and fees imposed by state and local governments. The measure gathered nearly one million signatures and has qualified for the November 5 ballot. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former…
What do you think of when you hear the words “Nordic welfare state”? Government-run health care, with reasonable fees for regular check-ups but long waiting lists for certain life-saving treatments? Free university education, the proviso being that there may not…
As I recounted recently in the Wall Street Journal, 20 years ago Milton Friedman wrote me to say, after doing a complete analysis, he believed we should be taxing our universities rather than subsidizing them. The economics involved are pretty…
The 7.5 earthquake and resulting tsunami that shook Japan on New Year’s Day set the stage as the faultless metaphor that will reverberate throughout 2024 and beyond. With the impending presidential election aside, the tremors of improbability arrived a month…
As a new year dawns, it’s customary to reflect on the past and set resolutions for the future. This year, let’s resolve to greet three widespread claims with healthy doses of skepticism. The first dubious claim is that income inequality…
The biggest challenge for any party whose political strategy involves uniting as many different factions as possible is managing the issues which set those factions against each other. Witness just a few of the internal conflicts currently plaguing the Democrat…
Tuesday morning the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments pursuant to a case in which Charles and Kathleen Moore argue that an obscure provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is unconstitutional. This is not an “inside…