Sacramento Should Fight To Save Jobs, Not Bureaucracies
The state’s budget crisis has forced leaders in Sacramento to a crossroads: protect taxpayers and create jobs, or protect the entrenched bureaucracies and keep raising taxes.
I have spent the majority of my career in economic development working to bring jobs to the Central Coast and helping local small businesses succeed.
With unemployment on the rise, Sacramento recently levied the largest tax increase on Californians in history. These new taxes come at a time when California is ranked as one of the most highly taxed and most hostile to business states in the nation. We watch in frustration as our neighbor states lure away our employers with low taxes, less red tape and more a more intelligent regulatory environment.
Sacramento now has a choice. Our budget crisis leaves little question that our state needs to generate more revenue if we are going to have the safe neighborhoods for our families, good schools for our children, great parks and open spaces to explore, and vital health services for those in need.But additional revenue must come from a prosperous economy where workers and families can thrive. We will never be able to achieve this quality of life if Sacramento continues to strangle small businesses and drive away the jobs that provide the tax revenues.
The answer to Sacramento’s chronic problems is not higher taxes. Sacramento must cut back on inefficient or unnecessary spending that doesn’t benefit Californians. Then it should work to reform and restructure state operations so we get the biggest bang for our tax dollar. These two steps alone will help the state provide better services, at a much lower cost.
When facing a $26 billion deficit, it is inexcusable that state government isn’t evaluating state programs to see if they actually work or are serving the people’s needs, and taking steps to cut those that aren’t getting the job done.
Just as important as it is for government to think like a business, government needs to understand how important businesses and jobs are to solving our budget problems.
Right now, the Legislature goes out of its way to make it more expensive and more difficult for small business to stay open in California with the multiple layers of the mandates, fines and fees it imposes. I know of many small businesses in our community that have had to downsize or close because they couldn’t afford to stay open any longer.
Sacramento must begin to understand that we in the small business community are part of the solution to the state’s budget problems. Too many in Sacramento don’t understand that when small businesses thrive, this is great news for California because more people working means more tax money for the state.
As someone who spends every day in the trenches fighting to put people back to work, I urge Sacramento to look to the business community for solutions to the budget crisis. Sacramento must cut bloated bureaucracy and create a climate in our state that values businesses and job creation for the revenue they create. Only when the state starts applying this common-sense business thinking to government will California make any real progress in turning things around.
Author: Etta Waterfield
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