An annual occurrence in Sacramento is the California Chamber of Commerce issuing a list of "job killer " bills. Earlier this week, the Chamber released this year’s list. The Chamber found 37 bills that would cripple job creation and keep California mired in its economic recession.
As I have argued on this page many times before, the way for California to crawl out of its financial hole is create more jobs, which will increase the wealth of the people and enrich government coffers.
A few years ago, Larry Kosmont, who, in conjunction with the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, produces the well-respected Cost-of-Doing-Business Survey estimated that creating 173,000 new jobs in the state would provide $35 billion in tax revenue over ten years.
It also should be noted that the study on the cost of regulation on small business authorized by the legislature and submitted last year by Varshney and Associates declared that the cost of regulation on small business not only blunted job growth but deprived government of collecting $57,260.15 per small business in indirect business taxes. Wouldn’t that go a long way to balance government budgets?
However, California legislators too often come up with ideas that will hinder job creation and economic growth. The "job killer" list provided by the Chamber is an important way to focus attention on bills that will work against turning the economy around.
The Chamber broke the list of bills into four categories: Costly Workplace Mandates; Economic Development Barriers; Expensive, Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens; and Inflated Liability Costs.
Examples of some of the bills targeted are:
AB 1994 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Increased Workers’ Compensation Costs – Inappropriately increases costs to employers by expanding workers’ compensation presumptions into the private sector for the first time by allowing hospital workers to be eligible for various presumptions, including H1N1, MRSA, and other diseases and injuries.
SB 1474 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Increased Agricultural Costs – Undermines the process that now guarantees through secret-ballot elections, a fair vote and the expression of agricultural employees’ true sentiments on the selection of a collective bargaining representative. This act will hurt California’s businesses by driving up costs, making employers less competitive in a global market.
AB 2492 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Higher Employer Property Taxes – Undermines Proposition 13 protections and could result in higher property taxes for small businesses by creating an arbitrary and unfair standard for determining that a business property has changed ownership and needs to be reassessed.
For the list of all 37 "job killer" bills go here.