Assembly Concurrent Resolution 118, which names a stretch of Highway 99 in Sutter County the “California Small Business Owners’ Highway,” has officially been chaptered; making it the first highway sign in California history to recognize the significance of the small business community. The small business community is too important to not get this type of […]

California’s young people deserve the best education they can get at a reasonable price. At a time when the average debt for a college graduate is between $30,000 and $60,000, I recently proposed a simple, yet revolutionary idea — a $10,000 California State University bachelor’s degree. By creating closer coordination between high schools, community colleges […]

Governor Rick Perry’s latest attempt at luring businesses from California to Texas is a 30-second radio ad where he says, “Building a business in California is next to impossible.” While I can’t fault Governor Perry for campaigning to bring more jobs to his state, I think it’s time Californians take a stand. After seven years […]

It has been said that the first step of solving any problem
is to admit that a problem actually exists. 
Ignoring or denying the problem only makes it worse in the
long-run. 

In California, we clearly have a jobs problem as we have the
nation’s second-highest unemployment rate at 11.9 percent.  At the same time, we also pay one of the heaviest
tax burdens in the nation, including the highest sales and gas taxes and the top
business income tax rate in the West. 
Respected publications such as Forbes
and Chief Executive have also ranked
the not-so Golden State as one of the worst places to do business.

Now comes a new report from the
Virginia-based Mercatus Center at George Mason University that confirms the
obvious: California is one of the least friendly states for freedom in the
nation.  We rank 48^th out of
50 states for having policies and laws that restrict the ability of people to
pursue their dreams.  I believe it is
this lack of freedom that makes it harder for us to attract the investment and
jobs we need to turn our state’s economy around.

In his Fox and Hounds opinion piece on August 27, Jeremy Leffler COO of BayBio, an industry consortium, touts the growth in biotechnology and bemoans the effects of Proposition 23 could have on that industry. He’s got many facts wrong and misses the bigger picture.

Mr. Leffler states that AB32 was adopted in "bi-partisan fashion."  In 2006, on a party-line vote, legislative Democrats passed AB32 over the objections of Republicans. Authored by then-Assembly Speaker Fabien Núñez, ostensibly to combat the effects of global warming, AB32 forces businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. At the time, California’s unemployment rate was just under 5 percent.

"More than 6,000 new jobs were created in our [biotechnology] sector in just in the past 12 months, many of them in the development of alternative bio-fuels that are the direct result of California’s leadership." Also partly as a direct result of that ‘leadership’ California LOST 9,400 jobs in July alone and remains three percentage points higher in unemployment compared to the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In California, we spend more money a year on taxes than most spend on food, clothing, and shelter combined.   As Californians we also pay some of the highest taxes in the nation, including the highest sales and income taxes.  Yet Sacramento Democrats are scheming to take away even more of your hard-earned dollars to compensate for their over-spending despite a staggering $12.5 billion tax increase imposed just last year!

With the highest sales tax and second highest income tax in the country, Democrats are planning again to raise billions of dollars in new taxes. Here are just some of the measures that they have proposed:

If
you had a choice between paying several thousand dollars a year in
higher utility, fuel, food and other costs, and temporarily postponing
an ineffective global warming law until the economy improves, it would
be a simple decision, right?

Well, thanks to the 800,000 voters who signed petitions to put the
California Jobs Initiative on the November ballot, voters will actually
have a chance to make that choice.

The California Jobs Initiative is a common-sense proposition that will
temporarily suspend implementation of AB 32, the state’s global warming
law, until our unemployment rate returns to a level closer to where it
was when the law was originally adopted by the Legislature.

At a time when 2.26 million Californians are searching for
work and our economy is on life support, Democrats and Republicans should be
doing everything they can to encourage new investment and jobs in our
state.  But when given the chance
to foster a stronger economy, Sacramento Democrats said no.

Last week, I presented Assembly Bill 1833, common-sense
legislation that I co-authored with Assembly Republican Leader Martin Garrick,
to require state agencies to first conduct an independent economic analysis of
a proposed new or revised state regulation before it takes effect.  Our bill would simply require
bureaucrats to weigh the impacts of new regulations on California jobs and post
the information online.  It would
not block or repeal any regulations needed to protect the public.

When presented the opportunity to pass responsible reforms
to stimulate the economy and spur job creation, the Democrats on the Assembly
Business, Professions, and Consumer Protection Committee killed our proposal on
a party-line vote.  They joined
with union bosses to crush a bill that was meant to protect small businesses
and restore our economy, ignoring the mounting evidence that costly
regulations are driving jobs away to other states.

With our state’s unemployment rate now 12.5 percent – and 2.26 million people out of work – there is no priority more pressing for the Legislature today than putting California Jobs First again.

As a former small business owner myself, I know first hand just how difficult it is to create and retain jobs in our state. According to Forbes magazine, California’s job creators are forced to pay the highest business costs in the country and bear the third-costliest business tax climate nationwide, while enduring the constant threat of junk lawsuits in a state that is ranked the 7th worst for lawsuit abuse.

In recent months, my Assembly Republican colleagues and I have heard from business owners across the state as to the challenges they face in keeping their doors open in California. We even traveled across state lines to Reno, Nevada, to hear why businesses relocated out of our state.
Their answer was the same – expensive mandates, burdensome regulations, high taxes and fees, and downright hostility from state government drove them away.

When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB32 [assembly bill 32] in 2006, California’s unemployment rate was a modest 4.8%. This past Friday we learned that it now stands at 12.5%.

AB32 requires a massive reordering of our state’s economy and massive tax increases to pay for these shifts. It includes a provision for it to be suspended if our state faces economic hardships, and that time has come.

The governor refuses to order a suspension, so I have teamed up with Ted Costa of People’s Advocate and Congressman Tom McClintock to give the people of California an opportunity to make this important decision.

On November 25, 2009, we submitted the California Jobs Initiative to the Attorney General for title & summary. We will begin gathering signatures to qualify this measure for the November 2010 ballot in mid-January. If you would like to help, go to www.danlogue.com.