EZ Policy Blog

Here’s the speech:

From the Republican Caucus Web Site:

Stop California Jobs from Fleeing

While the Democrat so-called jobs proposal fall silent on addressing the hemorrhaging of California jobs, Senate Republicans continue to introduce meaningful measures.

Implementation of AB 32, Cap-and-Trade (SB 8x 49 Dutton)
Puts a halt to the state version of cap-and-trade – an idea that was scrapped on Capitol Hill — which would result in a staggering $143 billion “Air Tax” that would cripple our state’s economy. All Californians want clean air and water, but California cannot afford to embark on a cap and trade system alone.

Homebuyer Tax Credit (SB 8x 21 Ashburn)
A $10,000 per homebuyer tax credit will go towards the purchase of new and existing homes. The new home buyer tax credit was the most successful jobs bill the legislature passed last year. SB 8X 21 will continue that success and double the number of jobs created and make possible homeownership for thousands of Californians.

Capital Gains Tax Reduction (SB 8x 43 Dutton)
Spurs investment and employment in California by cutting the long term capital gains rates in half.

R&D Tax Credit (SB 8x 44 Dutton)
Aligns California’s research and development tax credit rate with that of the federal government’s, helping to encourage innovation and investment, and the creation of high paying jobs.

Health Savings Account (SB 8x 47 Dutton)
Increases state tax deductions for contributions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), thereby encouraging long-term savings for health care expenses and providing an opportunity for more families to have affordable health insurance.

Energy Commission Regulations (SB 8x 68 Huff)
The California Energy Commission needs a check on its power. It must be overseen by the full legislature and, furthermore, any new regulations need to wait until California’s unemployment rate is maintained at 5.1% or lower for 3 consecutive months.

Work Opportunity Tax Credit (SB 8x 59 Dutton)
Gives employers tax credits for hiring people off historically high welfare rolls, helping get Californians back to work while reducing California’s public assistance obligation.

Restore California’s Competitive Job Creation Climate

Unlike the Senate Democrats misplaced priorities as it relates to California’s desperate need for new jobs, Senate Republicans continue their focus on creating jobs by removing legislative and regulatory burdens, not publicly funded employment programs.

Jobs Protection Act (SB 8x 60 Harman)
Requires a fiscal impact analysis, a hearing and legislative approval before bills affecting business costs become law.

Out of State Health Plans (SB 8x 65 Huff)
Permits out of state healthcare plans and insurers to offer their services in California, offering competition, reigning in costs and making healthcare more affordable for everyone.

CEQA Exemptions (SB 8x 56 Hollingsworth)
Streamlines the infrastructure project permitting process, allowing shovel ready projects to start quickly and put Californians back to work.

K-12 contracting (SB 8x 61 Huff)
Gets rid of antiquated policies that limit the ability to hire the best, most cost efficient person for non-instructional jobs – such as transportation, landscaping and maintenance – allowing schools to do what is most important — teach our children.

Improve Small Business Access to Capital (SB 8x 51 Dutton)
Simplifies the business tax code to get cash flowing back to small businesses, assisting companies in their efforts to expand and hire new workers.

Manufacturers, R&D Sales and Use Tax Exemption (SB 8x 58 Dutton)
Exempts manufacturing and research and development equipment from sales and use taxes, helping California – notorious for taxing its businesses out of state — become economically competitive once again.

Veterans Hiring Tax Credit (SB 8x 63 Denham)
Provides a tax credit to private sector employers who hire veterans. There are thousands of veterans returning home to California and this measure will incentives the private sector to hire them.

Initiate Regulatory Review and Relief

Meals and Rest Periods (SB 8x 70 Dutton)
Allows more flexible and appropriate standards for employers and employees to schedule mandatory breaks throughout a shift.

New Car Sales Tax Reduction (SB 8x 46 Hollingsworth)
Allows a person trading in their used car to reduce the principle cost of a new vehicle, saving the buyer in taxes and helping the dealer sell more cars and stimulate the economy.

Eliminate Corporate Penalty (SB 8x 54 Hollingsworth)
Eliminates the existing million dollar penalty for companies that underestimate their corporate tax liability, giving companies more money to invest or expand by not having to overestimate their taxes as a precaution.

Salesperson Licensing Reform (SB 8x 67 Huff)
Allows owners of multiple car dealerships to share staff, providing their employees more opportunities to sell cars at any one dealership in an industry that has been decimated by the recession.

Delay On-Road/In-Use Diesel Regulations (SB 8x 57 Cox)
Delays the costly new diesel engine regulations enacted by The California Air Resources Board that have had an onerous effect on all transportation sectors. Delaying these regulations will help keep these small businesses keep their doors open and workers employed.

Flexible Workweek (SB 8x 66 Cox)
Allows employers to offer flexible work weeks, giving their employees the opportunity to spend more time with their families and employers more flexibility in scheduling their workers.

Systematic Review of Regulations (SB 8x 48 Dutton)
Regulations are strangling our businesses and stifling growth. Requires a review of all regulations to determine which ones are cost effective and requiring those that are not to be repealed or amended. Overregulation is strangling our businesses and stifling growth, reducing and simplifying the regulatory burden will help jump start our struggling economy.

Third-party Analysis of Economic Impact of ARB Regulations (SB 50 8x Dutton)
Requires an objective third-party to analyze the economic impact of Air Resource Board (ARB) regulations. Time after time, ARB studies have proven to be seriously flawed. This would ensure that real economic analyses are completed.

Create Full Employment Act for Entrepreneurs, Not Attorneys

Repeal of the Sue Your Boss Law (SB 8x 64 Hollingsworth)
Repeals the Private Attorneys General Act, which takes the responsibility of investigating employer misdeeds out of the hands of the Labor commission or the Attorney General and puts it into the hands of ambulance chasing lawyers. Repealing this law will lower overall costs and prevent further frivolous lawsuits.

Tort Reform (SB 8x 69 Huff)
Prevents innocent sellers from being frivolously sued for selling faulty goods they did not manufacture.

Senate Republicans agree that job creation is the number one priority. These job creation bills should be considered during the 8th Extraordinary session to expedite economic recovery as quickly as possible.

Here at the CAEZ Conference in Fresno, three new board members have been elected: Fran Aguilera of the San Joaquin Valley EZ, Libby Day of the San Diego LAMBRA, and Melissa Alva of the Pasadena EZ.

I recently started using DocStoc to display documents on EZ Policy Blog. I wanted to get some feedback from readers if they like the new display, or if they prefer the old manner of linking documents.

Please click on this link to participate in the poll: http://www.doodle.com/2qc83fdyftcpfspc

The DocStoc displayed document should look like this:

Here’s a fascinating and entertaining look at the world of tax incentives from the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web Today” feature:

The Great Paper Caper: Government offers subsidy. Company takes it. Left-wing writer suffers crisis of faith.

Poor Christopher Hayes! He’s the Washington editor of The Nation, a left-wing magazine, and he writes that two years in the capital “have started to make me feel jaded”:

I’ve come to expect that even nobly conceived laws will be manipulated and distorted for private ends. But once in a while I hear a story that gives me the queasy feeling that I’m nowhere near cynical enough.

The story that set off Hayes’s bout of sicchasia involves the “alternative fuel tax credit” and the paper industry. The 2005 transportation bill provides for “a fifty-cent-a-gallon credit for the use of fuel mixtures that combined ‘alternative fuel’ with a ‘taxable fuel’ such as diesel or gasoline”:

Enter the paper industry. Since the 1930s the overwhelming majority of paper mills have employed what’s called the kraft process to produce paper. Here’s how it works. Wood chips are cooked in a chemical solution to separate the cellulose fibers, which are used to make paper, from the other organic material in wood. The remaining liquid, a sludge containing lignin (the structural glue that binds plant cells together), is called black liquor. Because it’s so rich in carbon, black liquor is a good fuel; the kraft process uses the black liquor to produce the heat and energy necessary to transform pulp into paper. It’s a neat, efficient process that’s cost-effective without any government subsidy. . . .

By adding diesel fuel to the black liquor, paper companies produce a mixture that qualifies for the mixed-fuel tax credit, allowing them to burn “black liquor into gold,” as a JPMorgan report put it.

So a credit designed to encourage the use of alternative fuels instead ends up subsidizing the use of conventional fuel. As a consequence, Chris Hayes has a sort of crisis of faith–but faith in what exactly? Here’s his conclusion:

The episode is a useful reminder of the persistently ingenious ways the private sector can exploit even well-intentioned legislation. Considering that the success of the Treasury’s recently announced plan to rescue the financial sector depends, in part, on the private sector not gaming the rules, the black liquor story seems particularly germane.

One may assume that Hayes, as a writer for The Nation, is favorably disposed to the idea of government intervention in the economy. You might think the paper caper would lead him to question the wisdom of such intervention, at least as a practical matter. But no. What shocks him–sickens him!–is the behavior of big corporations: “the persistently ingenious ways the private sector can exploit even well-intentioned legislation.”

Is he just now figuring out that corporate executives exploit opportunities to make a profit? Any free-marketeer could have told him that. Leftist economic theory is even more wrongheaded than we thought if it relies on the assumption that private-sector actors will behave in public-spirited ways.

Or perhaps his surprise is not that corporations “exploit” opportunities but that they do so in “ingenious” ways. His faith in governmental competence may be unshakable, but his illusions about private-sector incompetence have been shattered.

It’s hard to believe, but EZ Policy Blog turns three years old today.  Thanks to my readers for providing the encouragement to keep the project going.

I will be participating with a panel of experts for an Enterprise Zone workshop in Santa Clarita on March 25.

The Pasadena Star-News printed a commentary by City Councilwoman Mary Ann Lutz on the importance of establishing an Enterprise Zone in Monrovia.

Long Beach Mayor  Bob Foster touted the Enterprise Zone in his State of the City address this week.

Smart Money Magazine reports that the U.S. House economic stimulus plan includes an expansion of the WOTC to include a target group for unemployed individuals.

The Sacramento Bee has posted the full text of the Governor’s State of the State address.

I will be speaking tomorrow at a breakfast meeting for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for a program they are hosting, “Take Advantage of State Enterprise Zone Tax Benefits.”  The event starts at 8:00, hope to see you there.

CAEZ will hold its quarterly board meeting in Sacramento on Jan. 21.

The Governor’s new tax commission, or “Commission on the 21st Century Economy” will hold its first meeting on Jan. 22 in San Diego.  Here is a link to the agenda.

Now you can order all kinds of EZ Policy Blog gear at the EZ Policy Blog Store.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal, Arizona is trying to keep up with California’s tax incentives:

An expanding research and development tax break has made it into budget plans being finalized by the Legislature.

The R&D measure expands Arizona’s tax credits bringing them more in line with other states such as California.

Here is the video of Governor Schwarzenegger’s appearance on “Meet the Press” this past Sunday with Tom Brokaw:








Some key quotes:

“We see other states are struggling, the country is struggling, people are struggling, and I think we see it now all over the world. And I think the key thing for it is to again, bring everyone together and just start right away with an economic stimulus package, which of course is done on a national level, but also each state has the responsibility to do that.”

“Well, first of all, let me just say that it is sad when you see the kind of people that are unemployed, and how tough it is to get a job, and this is why we want to pump in as quickly as possible the billions of dollars to get people back to work, especially in the construction business.”

You can find the whole transcript here.

Phew!  The company that hosts EZ Policy Blog must have had some very serious server malfunctions.  Hopefully all is well at this point.  It’s good to be back.

Breaking news from the Sacramento Bee:

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill announced Thursday that she will retire at the end of the year.

Hill, who served 22 years as the Legislature’s non-partisan budget analyst, was the fourth legislative analyst in the office’s 67-year history. She will be replaced by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

From the Associated Press:

At a cost of nearly $42 million, the IRS wants you to know: Your check is almost in the mail.

The Internal Revenue Service is spending the money on letters to alert taxpayers to expect rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus plan.

Here is the full text to the Governor’s 2008 State of the State address delivered earlier today.

A good deal of Board of Equalization work, including several pending cases dealing with Enterprise Zones, is being delayed because of a mold problem. As reported in the Sacramento Bee:

The state Board of Equalization has moved employees from two floors of its downtown high-rise headquarters after finding “a variety of molds” growing in the walls.

A memo sent to BOE staff members Monday said the 22nd and 23rd floors of the 24-story building at 450 N St. are off-limits to everyone but construction workers.

Beth Mills, a spokeswoman for the state Department of General Services, said the mold found last week between two layers of gypsum wallboard includes Stachybotrys chartarum, the “black mold” that has been the subject of numerous legal claims and reports of illness nationwide.

BOE says they cleared the two floors because they discovered the mold during repainting. But an attorney pointed out that the move came less than two weeks after he filed claims on behalf of four BOE employees who say that they’ve been sickened by working in the building, and that BOE management has covered up problems stemming from extensive water leakage into the high-rise.

We are hearing that work papers must be tested for mold before they can leave the building. If that wasn’t bad enough, the building is also hosting some endangered species. The Sacramento Bee, via the California Taxpayer’s Association explains:

Interim Deputy Director David Gau (told) BOE employees not to do anything to disturb the creatures. “If any bats should be seen in the building in the future … do not attempt to capture or harm the bat,” Mr. Gau wrote. “Bats are an endangered species and are protected.” The BOE hired a company called United Bat Control to capture the five flying mammals and, at the same bat-time, to inspect the building for clues as to how they entered. “After inspecting the penthouse, roof, and the 12th floor, the contractor was unable to locate any possible, obvious, point of entry,” Mr. Gau wrote. “The contractor also noticed nothing to indicate that there is a colony of bats living in the building.”

Don’t forget to register for the CAEZ Annual Conference, this year in Modesto from October 24-26. Here is the draft of the agenda.