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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 07/14/2003 2:34:06 AM PDT by sfwarrior
"The chief business of the American people is business." -- President Calvin Coolidge
California is going downhill, and fast. Houses and apartments remain unaffordable, utility costs are among the highest in the nation, traffic is unbearable, taxes are going up dramatically, good-paying jobs are hard to find and businesses are fleeing the state.
If only California leaders would take Coolidge's advice, we might not be in the fiscal crisis we are in. But, no, in California, legislators think business serves only two purposes: as a ready supply of campaign cash and as an endless font for tax revenue. California likes to provide services, lots of them, and its government sees budget deficits as no problem -- raising taxes is the simple answer.
But there's a limit to the threshold of pain business, California's golden goose, will tolerate.
A report issued by the state's Chamber of Commerce discovered:
California's tax burden has noticeably increased over the past decade to more than 24 percent above the national average. New York, New Jersey and technology-intensive Massachusetts have all seen their tax burdens decline relatively during the same period. California's corporate tax burden is almost 40 percent above the national average -- only Massachusetts and New Jersey are higher. With recent rate increases, electricity costs in California are nearly double the national average and the highest in the contiguous United States. According to a weighted, composite cost-of-doing-business index, California's overall business costs are 32 percent above the national average. In other words, you'd have to be nuts to be in business here if you can move somewhere else. When companies leave, so do the jobs and taxes they generate. The manufacturing sector has been the hardest hit; more than 200,000 jobs were lost in the last two years. In 2002, California lost 125,500 non-farm jobs.
We need solutions, so is there hope on the horizon? Not if we have to contend with Sacramento. In the last 12 months, despite millions of dollars in lobbying efforts by businesses to get their message heard, California has proposed or passed an additional 94 job-killing bills. This all just goes to prove the veracity of what President Theodore Roosevelt once opined: "It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws." California's Democrats are proving that maxim true every day. All 94 job-killing bills were introduced by -- you guessed it: Democrats.
The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimated that just one new manufacturing job, at the average income per worker of $33,264 a year, will yield $4,500 to the general fund of California per year. Of these taxes, $3,000 goes to local education and health services, and almost $900 to local government. Additionally, for every new job created...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
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California's tax burden has noticeably increased over the past decade to more than 24 percent above the national average. New York, New Jersey and technology-intensive Massachusetts have all seen their tax burdens decline relatively during the same period. California's corporate tax burden is almost 40 percent above the national average -- only Massachusetts and New Jersey are higher. With recent rate increases, electricity costs in California are nearly double the national average and the highest in the contiguous United States. According to a weighted, composite cost-of-doing-business index, California's overall business costs are 32 percent above the national average. In other words, you'd have to be nuts to be in business here if you can move somewhere else. When companies leave, so do the jobs and taxes they generate. The manufacturing sector has been the hardest hit; more than 200,000 jobs were lost in the last two years. In 2002, California lost 125,500 non-farm jobs.
When the job losses created by the tax and spend lunatic left socialists in Sacramento are removed from the national unemployment ranks, California is basically responsible for the high unemployment rate in the nation.
There were over 21,000 newly unemployed in California for the month of May. So the number/month and rate may be increasing.
Vote the Democrats out while you still have a future.
Please put me on your ping list and I hope to see you post more of your well reasoned articles...
We don't need all those dirty defense industry jobs. They are growth inducing! Look what the defense department did to LA. Likewise, we don't need all those other jobs either as they create commuters and traffic. If that keeps up we would have to build new freeways and widen the old ones. Why do you think we've been resisting all that infrastructure enhancement all these years since Jerry Brown? All this sniping about lost jobs is extremely short sited and lack civility! Shame on you! We love our CA and you obviously don't, so you might consider leaving too.
They won't be happy till there's no opportunity here and the whole state's cities look like Tijuana and there's nothing but retirees in "the rural environment," trying to drive their wheel chairs and skooters through the dust and mud!!!
By the way... Have you ever noticed how many of them get up to speak at public meetings and cannot pronounce the word "Rural" in their catch phrase "rural environment?" It comes out repeatedly as: "These road improvements will surely ruin our rule environment!" They can't seem to comprehend that rural is a two sylabl word!!!
Sacto to Business: Get Lost
VIEW FROM THE RIGHT
Adam Sparks, Special to SF Gate Monday, July 14, 2003,p> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The chief business of the American people is business." -- President Calvin Coolidge
California is going downhill, and fast. Houses and apartments remain unaffordable, utility costs are among the highest in the nation, traffic is unbearable, taxes are going up dramatically, good-paying jobs are hard to find and businesses are fleeing the state.
If only California leaders would take Coolidge's advice, we might not be in the fiscal crisis we are in. But, no, in California, legislators think business serves only two purposes: as a ready supply of campaign cash and as an endless font for tax revenue. California likes to provide services, lots of them, and its government sees budget deficits as no problem -- raising taxes is the simple answer.
But there's a limit to the threshold of pain business, California's golden goose, will tolerate.
A report issued by the state's Chamber of Commerce discovered:
California's tax burden has noticeably increased over the past decade to more than 24 percent above the national average. New York, New Jersey and technology-intensive Massachusetts have all seen their tax burdens decline relatively during the same period. California's corporate tax burden is almost 40 percent above the national average -- only Massachusetts and New Jersey are higher. With recent rate increases, electricity costs in California are nearly double the national average and the highest in the contiguous United States. According to a weighted, composite cost-of-doing-business index, California's overall business costs are 32 percent above the national average. In other words, you'd have to be nuts to be in business here if you can move somewhere else. When companies leave, so do the jobs and taxes they generate. The manufacturing sector has been the hardest hit; more than 200,000 jobs were lost in the last two years. In 2002, California lost 125,500 non-farm jobs.
We need solutions, so is there hope on the horizon? Not if we have to contend with Sacramento. In the last 12 months, despite millions of dollars in lobbying efforts by businesses to get their message heard, California has proposed or passed an additional 94 job-killing bills. This all just goes to prove the veracity of what President Theodore Roosevelt once opined: "It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws." California's Democrats are proving that maxim true every day. All 94 job-killing bills were introduced by -- you guessed it: Democrats.
The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimated that just one new manufacturing job, at the average income per worker of $33,264 a year, will yield $4,500 to the general fund of California per year. Of these taxes, $3,000 goes to local education and health services, and almost $900 to local government. Additionally, for every new job created in the state, an additional 2.0 to 2.7 jobs are created in new business to support the existing business growth. The reverse is also true.
Workers' Comp: Neutron Bomb
The biggest problem for our state's business is the crisis in workers'-compensation insurance. Premiums are now astronomical. A typical machine shop pays about $50,000 per year in premiums for a $500,000 payroll. A similar shop in Arizona would pay just $13,000.
Is it any wonder the workers'-comp crisis, coupled with California's anti-business climate, forces businesses to make a mad dash for the door? In spite of the crisis, the state legislature continues to interfere in the workplace, raising workers'-comp benefits while planning a bevy of tax increases to counter a $38 billion deficit.
Average workers'-comp rates per $100 payroll for a machine shop are $2.63 in Arizona, $4.50 in Georgia and $9.97 in California. Insurance rates are high here for specific reasons related to a number of laws passed by the legislature. California is the only state, for example, that allows employees to receive benefits for permanent disability based only on subjective complaints of pain. A worker who reports, say, a lower-back strain can receive a permanent benefit payment even if no doctor can independently confirm the extent of the injury.
Frequently, police officers and others under investigation by their employers will go on an extended disability leave just before an administrative hearing probing their job performance. Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Simi Valley, just introduced a bill that would require a doctor to certify such injuries based on "objective medical findings."
Now, that's a novel concept.
To make matters worse, the legislature is seriously considering a bill to make workers'-compensation benefits to employees go up! This is a solution?
No, it's a poison pill -- an absolute nightmare. This is yet another legislative boondoggle and a disaster that will surely make premiums go up yet again and have businesses sprinting to California's borders.
While both political parties share culpability, the obvious responsibility clearly lies with the Democratic Party, which puts ideology over the needs of business. "The majority party doesn't want to hear from us," according to Richard Costigan, chief legislative liaison for the state Chamber of Commerce. That's a serious charge by California's largest business group.
This year will be even worse for business. Legislators are refusing to look at the underlying structural changes required to make California a more business-friendly state. The politicians are busy pandering to special-interest groups that want their programs preserved in the midst of this budget crisis. The Demos are busy appeasing to these special interests that represents their base: environmentalists, labor, minorities, nonprofits, etc.
Not to be outdone by the state's bungling incompetence, California's cities have also weighed in with additional barriers. And we have a winner for the most hostile-to-business city in California: It's -- no surprise -- San Francisco.
The City offers a classic textbook case on how not to run a municipal government. It constantly defies the laws of mathematics as it balances its burgeoning budget. A report recently released by the Committee on Jobs, a group of the City's largest employers, identifies both the problems and suggests solutions.
The City just closed the gap on a $350 million budget deficit with painful social-service cuts, employee-contract negotiations and new fees. Although the crisis was brought on by the fallout of the dot-com bust, San Francisco got into a similar fiscal imbroglio in the early 1990s. Why? Because of lack of fiscal discipline and the refusal to enact substantial, structural fiscal reforms, such as paying down your debt when you have a surplus, instead of creating and filling new job positions. The main difference between a drunken sailor and city politicos is that the sailor stops after he runs out of money.
The report says:
San Francisco now has more than 31,000 employees -- an increase of nearly 30 percent in eight years, while the population grew just 7 percent. The City continued to add positions after the private sector lost 60,000 jobs. The City's budget has increased 70 percent over the last eight years, nearly 300 percent faster than inflation. This could be one of the major problems: a bloated infrastructure hard to rein in during times of fiscal austerity. Because of increased head count, pension improvements and poor performance in the stock market, the City must restart employer-side contributions next year at a cost of up to $200 million per year within five years. Even after city workers agreed to resume paying their share of pension contributions in the next fiscal year as part of negotiated labor contract, their compensation packages still outpaced inflation over the last eight years. Some city workers make 25 percent more than their counterparts in other Bay Area counties. The City spends more on a unit basis to provide many of the same services as comparable cities and counties.
The Fix
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office." -- H. L. Mencken
Or, as one quip goes, the only things politicians ever fixed were elections. Having said that, a good place to start is with the Hippocratic Oath, which declares that the doctors' first commandment is, "Do no harm." If politicians simply passed no more anti-business legislation, rolled back ones they did pass, lowered taxes and fixed the workers'-compensation crisis, business would smile lovingly on them. By accomplishing all this, the state may not only stop the hemorrhaging of the largest job and business exodus in the state's history but may even attract new businesses to the state. There's another novel concept.
Larry McCarthy, president of the nonpartisan tax-reform group Cal-Tax, said, "In the context of the current budget crisis, it is important to remember that private-sector job growth is California's largest revenue-increasing opportunity. Revenue growth from investment and job growth will eclipse any tax increase the legislature could consider. Each new job created in California generates several thousand dollars of revenue to public agencies."
Big spenders in Sacramento and San Francisco apparently don't have a clue about how all their profligate spending and lack of budget discipline affects the business environment, jobs and the economy. "California's fiscal crisis is a direct result of the runaway government spending of the last four years and is worsened by the assault on the state's job-creating businesses," said state senator and GOP Caucus Chair Chuck Poochigian. "A real solution to the budget crisis ... must include meaningful proposals which encourage private-sector job creation and enhance California's competitiveness."
Maybe, just maybe, the real problem is that the Demo fat cats are simply all busily appeasing their anti-business constituencies, which is their base of support. If you're fed up or concerned, you have two choices: pack your bags and leave the state, or contact your Democratic party legislators and give them a piece of your mind.
Adam Sparks is a San Francisco conservative writer. He can be reached at adamstyle@aol.com.
You are aware that Democrats take in the bulk of contributions from wealthy investors in large multinational corporations?
Oh, and you forgot to mention the crisis in workman's compensation, where California business pays astronomical rates, the payments to injured parties are lousy, and the trial lawyers and insurance companies laugh all the way to the bank. It's a major oversight on your part.
These idiots in CA's current political majority are literally killing the goose that lays any golden eggs with their efforts to stop growth through making the State economically unattractive for employment, while at the same time creating an enormous dependent class, complete with "white flight," first to the burbs, then to the exurbs and finally... out of the State.
They run to business for campaign money, to business for tax money for their causes, to business for contributions for their liberal causes, to business to coerce payroll deductions from the employees, then they sue them and rule against them and defame them in the media if they don't readily "give back to the communutty!"
In self defense, businesses must routinely budget for this, plus lobbying, public relations and legal expenses to simply stay in business. Then I find some of them in bed with these "power trip groups" trying to get a leg up on the competition by seeking their favour.
It's getting pathetic and hard to believe, yet possible to understand. Even a "citizen politician" (as opposed to the career criminal, like Davis) cannot help business people who deliberately lie down with these dogs and then bitch because they come up with fleas!!!
Wish this guy could come up with his own stuff, yet imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, right?
Well, the Cold War pretty much ended in 1991. It's like blaming Earl Warren (governor of California in 1946) for the end of World War II.
The jobs didn't evaporate genius...they moved out of Kalifornia (e.g. Lockheed).
A lot of the jobs DID evaporate.
Quite simply, nobody's buying a gazillion airplanes and missiles anymore.
That's a fact, Jack! (Uh, I mean Dave)
Nice to see the DJIA up 150 points in spite of the burdens on business!!!
C.O., I'm not sure what you meant in you last comment.
LMT (Lockheed) engages in the research, design, manufacture and integration of advanced technology products and services ranging from aircraft, spacecraft and launch vehicles to missiles, electronics, information systems and energy management. For the three months ended 3/31/03, sales rose 18% to $7.06 billion. Net income from continuing operations rose 12% to $250 million. Results reflect a higher volume of commercial space activities, partially offset by lower operating margin.
Yep, companies like this wouldn't help Kalifornia a bit, would they? lol!
Wonder why Lockheed pulled up stakes in Kalifornia and moved virtually ALL of their operations out of the state during Wilson's administration?
Guess it was because of those pesky DemoRats, right?
Guess it was because of those pesky DemoRats, right?
Since the Dems controlled the Legislature (and, hence, tax policy and business legislation) during most of Wilson's term, yes, that's why a lot of companies left.
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