Next Round

PRI's All-Star panelists gather again to preview the mid-term elections. We discuss both the California and national elections, the gaffes and the scandals of this campaign season, and of course, our predictions. Featured are senior director of education Lance Izumi, California fellow Kerry Jackson, senior director of communications Tim Anaya, and Rowena Itchon, senior vice president.

Our guest this week is Brian Domitrovic, an economic historian focusing on the history and development of supply-side economics. He is the author of six books, beginning with the now standard history of supply-side economics Econoclasts(2009) and now his current book, Taxes Have Consequences (co-authored with Arthur B. Laffer and Jeanne Sinquefield) on the history of the income tax in the U.S. He has been a professor at institutions in Texas and Colorado and is the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center in Nashville. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.

Father’s Joe’s Villages was established in 1950 to serve San Diegans experiencing homelessness and poverty.  It has grown to include a comprehensive campus and other sites that house over 2,000 people nightly. We discussed with Deacon Jim Vargas, President and CEO of Father Joe’s Villages, their program to help the homeless gain self-sufficiency and his thoughts on the growing homelessness problem in California.

Our guest this week is Nick Loris, Vice President of Public Policy at C3 Solutions, short for Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions. Nick studies and writes about a wide range of energy and climate policies, including natural resource extraction, energy subsidies, nuclear energy, renewable power and energy efficiency. Tim caught up with Nick at the State Policy Network annual meeting in Atlanta. They talk about all things energy, including the state and federal green energy policies as well as the unrelenting high gas prices at the pump.

A known thought leader, writer, and speaker on all issues of innovation, communications and technology, PRI Senior Fellow Bartlett Cleland has spent his entire public policy career in the technology and innovation space. Tim sat down with Bartlett at the State Policy Network Annual Meeting in Atlanta where they discuss tech and public policy.

Our guest this week is Paul Cho, CFO of LifeArk, an organization that has designed 3-D printed houses for the homeless.  The first prototype community of its kind is in El Monte, California.  Paul discussed the current challenges in building housing for the homeless, including the bureaucratic hurdles presented by CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as misguided “housing first” policies.  We also ask him what advice he would give Governor Newsom when it comes to mitigating the housing and homeless crisis here in the state.

Next Round has a very special guest on this podcast – John O’Neill. He was the author of Unfit for Command, the bestseller detailing John Kerry’s tour of Vietnam. Now he has a new book, the Dancer and the Devil, the Dancer being ballerina Anna Pavlova and the Devil, Joseph Stalin. John makes the case that it was Stalin who was responsible for Pavlova’s mysterious and sudden death. He also discusses the history of bioweapons, how they have been the weapon of choice for communist countries against enemies of the state, and the origins of the Wuhan virus in China.

Our guest this week is Steve Greenhut, a fellow at PRI and director of PRI’s upcoming Free Cities Center. Steve is back to discuss the just ended legislative session and the new laws that Californians could see in the books. We discuss with Steve the franchise tax bill and what it means for restaurants, new housing bills, green energy, zero-cash bail, the future of single-payer health care, the budget and prospects for a prolonged recession.

Our guest this week is Secretary Betsy DeVos in conversation with Lance Izumi, senior director of PRI’s Center for Education.  Sec. DeVos is author of the new book Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child (Center Street Books). They discuss how we can expand school choice options for every student and parent, how to improve student performance, how to roll back government intrusion into classroom learning, and other key education reform topics.