Dan Walters

As California's budget faces years of operating deficits, politicians may be tempted to borrow money to cover them, but that would be a misuse of the state's bonding authority.

California has experienced population and economic growth for virtually all of its 173-year history, but now may be facing prolonged stagnation.

California adopted a master plan for its higher education system more than six decades ago, but its vision has never materialized. It's time to square the plan with 21st-century realities.

The state budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in June largely uses gimmicks to bridge a big deficit, and hopes increasing revenues in the future will make it work. However, his own administration sees a string of deficits in the future.

California state Sen. Steve Glazer recently pointed out that his Democratic Party is prone to spending money on problems while ignoring whether it works.

Very quietly, California's Department of Justice released its annual report on crime, revealing that violent and property crimes spiked in 2022.

California's school children were weak in educational attainment before COVID-19 struck and fell even further behind during the pandemic.

Tolls on San Francisco Bay Area bridges are rising sharply and that could affect the economy of a region still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three major providers of public services mounted strong campaigns for more state aid, citing financial crises, but the new state budget's outcomes varied greatly.

A new research paper pinpoints how the California Environmental Quality Act collides with another state law to make housing construction more difficult than it should be.