California’s unemployment rate, which has risen to 6.2%, is now the third highest in the nation (following only behind Michigan and Alaska).
This should start some alarm bells ringing in the California State Capitol.
Every legislator, before they vote for any legislation in committee, or on the floor, should be applying a simple litmus test – is this legislation going to create jobs? Will this bill improve our business and job creation climate so that new jobs are created for our unemployed? Will this bill help a small business who is close to closing its doors? If the answers are yes, then the vote should be yes. On the other hand, there are some other questions that can be asked… Would this bill create new regulations or burdens on employers, increasing the likelihood of layoffs or business relocations or closures? Would this bill increase the cost of doing business in California? If the answers to these latter questions is yes, well… It’s time to vote no!
The liberals who dominate the state legislature, and our Governor, need to understand that if people are unemployed, it’s just bad on every level. Not only are these folks not taking care of themselves, and likely headed for government support, but they are also not paying taxes and contributing to the state’s income.
Thank goodness the massive government health care plan that the Governor and Speaker Nunez were parading around last year was killed. Could you imagine the negative impact on our unemployment rate as California’s businesses, large and small, would have endured as the central “funding” mechanism of that plan was the largest business tax increase on the history of California.
The high unemployment rate might also be a good reason to put the brakes on a lot of the global warming alarmism legislation that is and will continue to make California a more expensive place to live and work. I was recently talking to a friend who told me that he is more likely to close his construction business than comply with the onerous regulations of AB 32 – the millions of dollars to upgrade his construction equipment just doesn’t pencil out. As he said, on one hand you have this “theoretical” negative impact on manmade CFC’s on the Earth’s temperature (he touts a study of thousands of years of the Earth’s changing temperatures as proof that nothing is out of the norm), but on the other hand you have the very real tragic impact of jobs being lost and quality of life for many being ruined by onerous regulation.
If California is going to continue to be the leader in innovation and if we are going to create, not destroy jobs, then we need to make a serious course correction in Sacramento. Legislative Republicans get it. It’s really all in the Governor’s hands. By using his veto pen, he can stop any more nonsense coming out of the Capitol. That said, the Democrats will continue to send the Governor “environmentally friendly” bills that are really just job killers. It’s time that the Governor spend less time subscribing to Al Gore’s brand of global warming alarmist, and instead circled the wagons in the face of very real unemployment numbers that should his priorities should be different.
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