It turns out Gov. Gavin Newsom was deadly serious when he insisted as a candidate last year that California needs to build 3.5 million new housing units each year for the next ten in order to solve its affordable housing crisis. That’s a total of 3.5 million, more than double what builders a…

TV may be a visual medium, but my view has always been that the best cable opinion shows depend on their writing. If you get a host who knows what he or she thinks and why, and can write it compellingly, the chances are you have a compelling program. I had no use for him, but this was true o…

Midterm elections have been generally unhelpful to U.S. House candidates of the sitting president’s party. From 1918 to 2016, according to political scientist Jacob Smith’s study for Ballotpedia, the president’s party lost an average of 29 House seats in midterm elections. In 2018, Democrats…

Travel back in time to the mid-1980s, when California’s insurance rates for both cars and property were nearly the highest in America and climbing fast. In that era, state insurance commissioners, who held the power to stop much of that acceleration, were appointed by the governor.

Some Americans have much higher income and wealth than others. Former President Barack Obama explained, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” An adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who has a Twitter account called “Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure” tweeted, “My …

Do you pay enough taxes? What is enough?

Some days you wake up and think, “Nope, not getting up.” I call these column days.

The other day I found myself, as I often do, at a conference discussing lagging wages and soaring inequality. There was a lot of interesting discussion. But one thing that struck me was how many of the participants just assumed that robots are a big part of the problem — that machines are ta…

The Trump administration just delivered a massive budget to Congress. A look at the numbers and the talking points drafted to defend it confirms that budgets favor politics over policy. This also confirms that it doesn’t really matter who is in the White House. Big spenders will spend and th…

When Dan Reed ordered up a score for his documentary, he asked the composer to evoke the image of a shimmering sprite leading two boys deeper and deeper into an enchanted forest.

A four-word phrase common on late-night television, exclaimed by announcers giddy about their offers: “Buy this kitchen knife that is so sharp it can slice and dice diamonds, and we’ll throw in a nonstick frying pan that can double as a satellite dish. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! If you call imm…

Why should it be of any importance or interest that Sherrod Brown, the third-term U.S. senator from Ohio, announced this week that he will not run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination? For one reason, unlike many recent would-be national leaders who belong to his party — a list th…

The farther four-term Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown gets from the state Capitol’s “horseshoe” office suite, the less likely it seems that either of his two would-be legacy projects will ever be completed.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims that “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”

This is the way the trade war ends. Not with a bang but with empty bombast.

Last week, Oregon became the first state in the nation to adopt a mandatory statewide rent control policy. Yet, rent control never delivers on the promise that it will multiply the affordable housing in high-value markets to serve middle- and lower-class families. It also always has negative…

In mid-2016, just before Donald Trump won the presidency, California’s Republican Party was on pace to become the third choice of state voters within three years, the first “major” political party to fall that low since Whigs became extinct just before the Civil War.