Author: Christian Britschgi

Maine is embracing new California-style laws aimed at reducing restrictions on new housing. It could soon run into some of the same problems encountered by the Golden State’s reforms. Last week, the Maine House of Representatives passed L.D. 2003. The legislation legalizes “missing middle” housing options such as accessory dwelling units and duplexes, gives state officials the power to set housing production goals, and requires local laws to “affirmatively further” those goals. The bill now heads to the Maine Senate, where it has already been approved once before. The measure has attracted bipartisan support, reflecting a growing consensus that local governments’ zoning regulations are making…

A disappointing new jobs report shows that hiring is down and the unemployment is rate is up, even as wages climb and employers complain about a shortage of workers. That apparent paradox has some policy wonks pinning the blame on expanded jobless benefits that pay workers more than what they could expect to earn working. The economy added 266,000 jobs in April according to the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), while the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 6.1 percent, from 6 percent. These numbers are well below forecasts from economists who predicted that April would see the addition of around…

Dire predictions about state budget woes turned out to be much too gloomy. Despite this, Democrats in Congress and the White House want to send the states billions more in federal aid. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform is set to mark up the $350 billion in state and local aid included in the $1.9 trillion relief package being pushed by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. The plan, according to a one-pager released by the committee earlier this week, is to spend $195 billion on aid to state governments, and another $130 billion on counties and cities. The other $25 billion would…

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated the service sector, made millions unemployed, and forced many of us who still do have jobs to work remotely. Fortunately, we now have a perfect solution to all this economic dislocation and disruption: a new tax on working from home! This week, the German financial giant Deutsche Bank released a new report full of proposals for how governments and corporations should respond to the pandemic. Included in the report is a call for a 5 percent tax on the incomes of people who work from home in places where the government is not advising or…

The Trump administration’s controversial nationwide eviction moratorium, issued through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month, is now the subject of a lawsuit from landlords who argue that the public health agency exceeded its authority when it unilaterally banned landlords from evicting tenants in state courts. On Friday, the National Apartment Association (NAA), a trade group, added its name to a lawsuit brought by four individual landlords in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, all of whom would move to evict a non-paying tenant but for the CDC’s order. That includes Jeffrey…