Maybe the optimists are right. The Governor has said “the worst is over” for the California economy.

But even if California has reached the nadir of our economic tumble, we’ve got a long way to go to climb back out.

The chart below tells the story (it looks worse than earlier versions since the employment numbers recently have been revised downward). Since the recession began in California in the summer of 2007, we’ve lost 1.3 million jobs – nine percent of employment. This is far worse than any other recession for the past half-century, but worse for construction (35% down), manufacturing (16% down), retail (12% down), and finance (14% down). The only sectors not seeing major job losses have been government (flat) and health care (up four percent).

Word out of Los Angeles on Friday was that the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut business taxes for Internet based firms. In the middle of a catastrophic city budget shortfall? How could that be?

The City Council was not reckless as it might appear. In fact, the tax cut measure will benefit the city’s treasury over time.

The City of Los Angeles taxes business according to the type of business carried out, with different categories paying different tax rates. For example, businesses that fall into the category of “multimedia businesses” pay a gross receipts tax based on a rate of $1.01 per $1,000 of gross receipts. A business that falls in the “business and professions” category pays a rate of $5.07 per $1,000 of gross receipts.

While I have problems with the Los Angeles business gross receipts tax, let’s put that aside for the moment and see why, despite the big budget shortfall in the city, council members chose to lower the tax on Internet firms.

As the English language goes, if you have to qualify a noun by preceding it with an adjective, then the subject is generally considered diluted.

For instance, if you feel the need to say you’re a “Registered Republican,” then you’re probably not wholeheartedly Republican. If you find yourself saying you’re a “Progressive Democrat,” there’s a strong likelihood you’re more “Progressive” than “Democrat.” And if you know deep down you’re a “bleach blonde” then trust me, you’re not really a blonde.

Such is the case with the nomenclature we’ve assigned to this phrase “Green Jobs.”

It begs the question: Is a “Green Job” really a Job?

Job numbers are hard and fast. Numbers in, numbers out. Each month, we receive a Jobs report showing the Net Loss/Gain of Jobs in this nation.

In the Spring of 1975 as a graduate student at Oxford University, I took the train to London one Saturday to attend a session of national Labor Party officials. Michael Foot, was the national Employment Secretary at the time in the Labor government of Harold Wilson, and one of the main speakers.

I thought of this Saturday long ago as I read that Michael Foot died Wednesday at the age of 96. I don’t recall anything of that session other than Foot’s oratory. He was a brilliant orator, as even his many opponents in the Labor Party, such as Dennis Healy, acknowledged. At one point in he declaimed of an initiative he regarded as misdirected, “Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles”. Indeed.

Foot had a lengthy career in government and politics, starting in 1934 when he joined the Labor Party. He served in Parliament from 1945 to 1955, and later from 1960 through 1992. He actually led the Labor Party from 1980 through 1983, when he lost in a landslide to Margaret Thatcher and was replaced by Neil Kinnock.

We’re past deadline at Fox & Hounds Daily, so these are hastily assembled first impressions of today’s U.S. Senate radio debate. And I’m scoring these folks on presentation—their views on foreign policy and national security, the subject of the debate, are so similar that there is simply no reason to get into that here.

– Carly Fiorina, calling in while her rivals were at the debate in person, sounded scratchy and tired (at least over my Internet connection). Her campaign team, for all its operational successes, needs to do more work on the candidate herself. She managed the terrible trick of managing to sound defensive even when she was attacking.

Advice: next time, try more courtesy. First-time candidates, particularly those who happen to be infrequent voters and who are running against people with long records of public service, should not call their rivals by their first names. Stop saying “Tom” and “Chuck,” and try “Congressman Campbell” and “Assemblyman DeVore.”

I know this is Mardi gras season, but it’s time to stop this masquerade.

On March 4, the Legislature sent the governor a majority-vote bill (ABX8 6) to implement a gas tax swap, a tax increase in disguise.

The legislation repeals the sales tax on gas and replaces the revenue with an excise tax of 17.3 cents per gallon. It also increases the sales tax on diesel fuel by 1.75 percent and reduces the gas tax on diesel fuel by 4.4 cents per gallon. And, for purposes of Prop. 98 school funding, the state has to pretend that this sales tax on gas was not repealed. Finally, the bill gives legislative authority to the State Board of Equalization to make adjustments to the excise tax rate to ensure “revenue neutrality” in the future.

The three GOP Senate candidates will get together for an hour-long radio debate this afternoon and listeners hoping for a reasoned and thoughtful discussion of national and international affairs probably should stick to NPR.

But if you’re looking for some political hardball and an early indication of what that Senate campaign’s going to look like from now until June, the Eric Hogue Show on Sacramento’s KTKZ 1380 (streaming live at www.ktkz.com from noon to 1 p.m.) will be worth a listen.

First off, kudos to Hogue, a veteran of hot talk radio, for putting the event together in a warp-speed hurry. But it never would have happened if it weren’t for last week’s flurry of reports, cheerfully forwarded by the Carly Fiorina campaign, showing that Tom Campbell had taken campaign money from donors linked to terrorist organization.

In support of student protests yesterday there were calls to add revenues to education budgets by taxing oil production. Building continuing programs on the foundation of diminishing resources is faulty architecture.

Both Assemblyman Alberto Torrico in the Huffington Post and Joe Mathews in Fox and Hounds Daily called for an oil severance tax to fund education.

But, such a move would have threatening consequences to the economy and to financially strapped Californians. As I wrote a couple of months ago on this page, the tax expense will likely be passed on to consumers at the pump. The cost of production may slow or eliminate some wells. That means Californians will have to import more oil. Jobs would be cut so the oil companies have the revenue to pay their tax bills.

I’ve heard of no texting while driving, but no texting while Legislating?

Proving once again that Democrats are missing the point by a country mile, incoming Assembly Speaker John Perez announced this week it would now be against the rules to text while on the Assembly floor.

The move is intended to prevent lobbyists from communicating with Legislators during Assembly session and to, somehow, magically lessen the grip that special interests have on the Capitol.

But, banning text messages to Legislators in order to prevent influence is like putting a Chiclet in the Hoover Dam to stop a leak.

I’ll tell you what, Mister Speaker. We’ll give up Text messaging if your side agrees to stop being held hostage by the labor unions, stops forcing hard-working teachers into the teachers’ union, and …well,… I could send you an entire list of special interest offenses. If only you’d accept my texts.