I’m glad Governor Brown is planning to make government more efficient and attempt to put California’s financial house in order.
But the Governor has it backwards. He thinks balancing the budget will solve our jobs problem. We actually need to solve our jobs problem to solve our budget problem. The Governor’s proposed tax hikes will only kill jobs and make our budget problems worse.
When I served in the Legislature, I warned that the last round of massive tax increases would damage California’s economy. Unfortunately, I was right. Since the February 2009 tax increase, California has lost half a million jobs, unemployment has grown 20%, and we’re still in a budget crisis.
Instead of raising taxes, the Governor should issue an executive order immediately freezing all new taxes, fees and regulations that hurt jobs. That would do more to solve California’s problems than a thousand speeches.
The Governor can talk about jobs all he wants, but it’s the private sector—not the government—that actually creates jobs. And right now California’s job creators have a severe hernia from trying to lift a mountain of new taxes, fees and regulations imposed on them during this economic downturn.