The Groundhog Day Budget in Sacramento
Remember the movie Groundhog Day? Bill Murray’s character has to relive the same day over-and-over again until he gets it right.
Well, the California State Legislature is scrambling, once again, to fix the state budget that is more than $20 billion out of balance. Haven’t we seen this before?
Of course we have. This time last year, and the year before, we were faced with historic deficits. Each year, the legislature presented a long list of tax increases that would ‘fix’ the budget. Last year’s $37 billion in new taxes was supposed to restore our state to fiscal solvency.
Well, guess what? It’s Groundhog Day over and over again—and our legislators seem to be surprised each time their ‘fix’ doesn’t work!
Tax increases haven’t helped, and our legislators haven’t curbed their appetite for bigger government and wasteful spending.
The fact is that we cannot tax our way out of the budget mess. As a matter of fact, every time we raise taxes, we only make our revenue problem worse by loading even more hardships on the backs of small business owners. Simply put: higher taxes kill jobs and negatively impact economic growth. The end result is even deeper economic recession.
That’s why Forbes has ranked California worst in the cost of doing business. Small business bankruptcies increased 81% between September 2008 and 2009, compared with an average increase of 44% nationwide. From July 2008 to July 2009, 141,000 Californians left the state in search of better business and job opportunities elsewhere. If our Legislature does not act to save California businesses, there will be no end to these budget deficits. It’s no surprise that California’s 12% unemployment rate is the third worst in the nation.
The only way we will ever stop our tax base from shrinking, and recover jobs and businesses, is to give the means for Californians to get back to work. This happens when California’s tax and regulatory environment is made tolerable, once again. And, faced with ever-decreasing tax revenues, our state must continually scale back its expenditures.
But, just like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, our legislature is slow to ‘get it.’
Even now, the California Air Resources Board is planning to institute cap-and-trade in California as a means to reach the benchmarks outlined by AB 32. The Administration’s own conservative estimates state that a cap-and-trade system in California will cost the state’s economy $200 billion. How many more jobs need to flee the state before our legislators realize that the state is suffering more than just a recession? Over-taxation and over-regulation are strangling our economy.
As part of the current budget deficit fix, Democrats are seeking to reduce corporate tax benefits. Are they trying to make California even more business unfriendly? To fight a shrinking tax base by raising taxes, or shuffling the tax burden from individuals to businesses, only exacerbates the problem. It is like trying to douse a fire with gasoline.
In a few short months, taxpayers will flex their power at the polls. Our one saving grace is to elect business-minded representatives to our state Legislature. Our career politicians do not understand that small businesses are the economic engine that will pull this state out of the recession, increase our tax base, and restore funding to our state’s non-expendable services such as public safety and education.
After this next election cycle, it my hope that the career politician unemployment rate goes up so that those of us who truly understand business can step in and fix the mess they’ve created.
Economic development is my expertise. For the past six years, I have been a Member of the Santa Maria Planning Commission, serving twice as the Commission Chair. I worked as the Coordinator for the Santa Maria Valley Economic Development Commission (a project of the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce) and previously I worked with the Santa Maria Valley Economic Development Association.
Working with these groups, on the public policy side with the Planning Commission and on the private sector side with the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Association, I have seen both sides of the equation. On the public side, I helped cut regulatory red tape and, on the private side, I negotiated tax breaks and other incentives—all of this to bring in business. This is the kind of action it will take to restore California’s economy.
For my staunch beliefs, I have been endorsed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association; the President of the National Tax Limitation Committee, Lew Uhler; Senator Tony Strickland; and many conservative Republican Assembly Members.
For years, I have been in the trenches fighting for businesses. This is the fight I will take to the Legislature once elected as the 33rd Assembly District’s representative in Sacramento.
This year, let’s help our state end the Groundhog Day repetitive scenario once and for all.
Author: Etta Waterfield
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Programs, programs and more ineffective government. California will never function well again until Capitalism and the free market get kick started again under a Conservative President – then the Democrats will again take the credit and begin again to kill the economy with more social programs…same old nonsense