Regulatory Relief on the Way?
It seems like the stars might be aligning
in California when it comes to regulatory reform for our state.
Last week, President
Barack Obama announced in a Wall Street Journal column that he is signing an
executive order directing government agencies to review rules and regulations
to ensure they do not unnecessarily hinder economic growth. Governor
Brown indicated earlier this month that he also favors taking a look at the
regulatory climate in California to make it more business-friendly. And more recently, Senate President pro Tem
Darrell Steinberg announced that he would support legislation forcing state
agencies to review all regulations and recommend reviewing the states
regulatory processes. In his words, "Government
needs to be more nimble."
As a small business owner who owns an electrical engineering
company in Bakersfield recently told me, "Regulations are strangling small
businesses out of existence in California." Whether it is onerous diesel
regulations, a pending AB 32 cap-and-trade system, or other restrictive labor
regulations such as the daily overtime requirement, small businesses and their
employees are being bombarded by costly regulatory mandates.
Group Touts New Pension Initiative
Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.
A pension reform organization has released a draft initiative plan for the 2012 ballot that would require public employees to pay half their retirement benefit costs, mandate defined contribution plans for new employees, significantly limit public pension benefits and require public employers to fully fund all pension and retiree medical benefit plans by 2020. The initiative will impose stringent new rules on the governance structure of public pension plans.
Sponsored by Californian Pension Reform, the initiative would apply to all public agencies in the state of California. “The last time we tried to reform pensions, the unions convinced everyone that the benefit changes we sought could best be negotiated at the bargaining table,” explained CPR President Marcia Fritz, the head of a Citrus Heights accounting firm. “We’ve seen a little movement in this direction, but mostly it’s been done to avoid public scrutiny. The unions have offered few changes that would begin to fix a half-trillion-dollar unfunded pension liability problem. In fact, they’ve actively tried to stop even modest pension reform efforts at the local level. So it’s time to take this matter to the state’s voters.”
Public Pay Study Seems Bogus
Cross posted www.calwatchdog.com.
The media have been providing serious reporting about a "UC Berkeley" study
It’s Time to Get Serious About Small Business
It seems that every election year, several key phrases start to emanate from the Capitol – "small business" and "job creation". A note to press secretaries and communications directors everywhere: just because a press release claims that a particular legislator is "small business" friendly or favors "job creation", doesn’t make it so.
It’s time for our state leaders to get serious about small business and pay attention to what job creators genuinely need from Sacramento.
First, legislators must ask themselves, "Who is responsible for creating jobs?" The answer should be obvious when you learn that small business creates approximately three quarters of all new jobs. They also create 14 times more patents per employee than large businesses and include more than 98 percent of business establishments.
Renew California: CalChamber Economic Recovery and Job Creation Plan
The California Chamber of Commerce is at the forefront of a broad,
non-partisan effort to rehabilitate the state’s image and improve the
climate for investment and job creation.
California will eventually
enjoy an economic recovery, but the strength and depth of our rebound –
and the fiscal health of state and local governments – will depend upon
making the state more competitive for job creation, new business
formation and new capital investment.
The five pillars of economic recovery are:
The Seinfeld Campaign and Goldman Sachs
Since California doesn’t have any governance problems that require action or merit discussion, isn’t it nice that the race for governor is focused on the question of: who is more tied to Goldman Sachs?
The answer to that is easy: Meg Whitman was on the board and got favorable treatment in IPOs. But I’ve been reluctant to weigh in. Like everyone else, I have so many conflicts of interest that I wonder if I too am a Goldman stooge. A close friend works for Goldman. Another friend did a real estate deal with some Goldman guys. The co-author of my new book is a former shareholder. One of my first editors at the Baltimore Sun has edited terrific stories for McClatchy’s Washington bureau that have exposed Goldman’s bad dealings. And Goldman is my fellow creditor in a bankruptcy fight over my former employer, the Tribune Company.
Plus, as an American taxpayer, my money was used to help save Goldman.
An Attempt to Stymie Pension Reform
One major battle to reform the public pension system is being played out over an assembly bill that would restrict the power of local governments to declare bankruptcy. Assembly Bill 155 by Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, came out of the Senate Local Government Committee this week after Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg dumped an opponent of the bill from the committee allowing the union backed bill to move along its way.
The bill is a power play by the public employee unions to stymie the use of bankruptcy as a device to reconsider public employee contracts. The bill surfaced after the City of Vallejo declared bankruptcy and used the bankruptcy laws to reconfigure pension provisions for new city employees and demand higher contributions in the retirement fund from current employees.
In an environment in which city and state officials are looking for ways to maneuver past fiscal crises, public employee pensions and benefits have become a hot issue. Suggestions on revamping pensions and benefits have popped up from the governor’s office to non-profit foundations. Much attention has been focused on Steven Malanga’s essay in the City Journal laying California’s deficit problem at the feet of public employee unions.
McClintock Should Not be Judged By Election Tally
Tony Quinn argued here yesterday that Steve Poizner‘s campaign was wrong in tying itself to Congressman Tom McClintock because McClintock’s philosophy has failed to win him a statewide race in four attempts.
The Steve Poizner of today is not the same Steve Poizner of yesterday. That may not necessarily be a bad thing depending on why Poizner changed directions. As Benjamin Franklin said after the Constitutional Convention, he changed opinions even on important subjects with “better information and fuller consideration.” However, the Tom McClintock of today is the Tom McClintock of yesterday and that consistency throughout his public life and has set him up as a measuring stick for others to stand by.
McClintock’s conservative line may not move the majority or be enough to capture statewide elections from an electorate that may not want to take bitter medicine, but his analysis of fiscal issues very often has been right on the mark. Remember too, that a couple of his statewide electoral efforts went into overtime, with the final count declaring his opponent victorious coming days after all the other elections on the ballot were decided.
Maybe We’re Furloughing the Wrong State Workers
In pushing a bill to prevent furloughs for nearly 80,000 state workers, Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg argued a number of furloughs were counter productive. He pointed particularly to the tax collectors under the Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board. According to a report, Steinberg argued that the furlough savings of $65 million in salary paid to these employees was more than offset by the loss of $465 million in unpaid taxes these workers would collect if they were on the job.
I don’t know how this calculation was made. Seems odd, though. When these workers were working full time was all that uncollected tax revenue accounted for? With rates of return described by Steinberg, we should offer overtime to the tax collectors. At that rate, they could probably collect enough revenue to solve the budget deficit in no time.
But let’s be less cynical. Let’s accept Senator Steinberg’s assertion that furloughs limit productive workers from doing the jobs they are supposed to do in improving the difficult condition of the state.
State Legislator Checklist for 2010
Our elected leaders have been back in session for just over
two weeks and once again it is clear that the majority of their time will be –
must be – dominated by the budget. Our recession still runs deep, scores of
Californians are still waiting in the unemployment line, and businesses –
mostly small businesses – from Del Norte to Del Mar are still shutting their
doors at a clip. As we face
another crushing multibillion dollar state deficit, who can blame them?
Well, California voters can, and they’d be justified.
Voters actually have an opportunity to make a positive
change for the Golden State this November. We can make the bold decision to
remove those officials who continue to force us to bail them out for their
reckless partying, and instead we can support individuals who demonstrate that
they genuinely care about Main Street, jobs and the livelihood of our state.