From the Santa Clarita Signal:

Santa Clarita Valley officials said Wednesday that they’re skeptical of Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest budget proposals that plan to scale back a program that gives tax breaks to local businesses.

“The governor certainly wants to find Republican votes, but he’s going to have to do more than what’s come out of the May revisions,” Smyth said. “Enterprise zones should be left alone.”

One of the biggest disadvantages facing California employers is, not surprisingly, the unions.

One big finding: labor unions are more powerful in California.

“Andrew Puzder from Carl’s Jr. talked about how the 8-hour work day and the meal breaks (required in California) are harmful, especially for restaurant businesses,” said Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda. “Because they may get a truckload of ….teenagers at 2:00 and he’s got to tell half of his staff to take a break while people line up out the door.”

 Read about the entire trip here.

This is from today’s Sacramento Bee:

The Senate Republicans made public their list of 53 demands in exchange for their vote to allow Jerry Brown to put the tax extensions on the June ballot.  Preservation of the EZ is on the list.  Assembly speaker John Perez said that the parties are now “farther apart” than they were before the list.

John Coupal issued a stinging missive today highlighting just how much Brown has caved to the Unions.  While everyone else is “sacrificing”, the Unions and Brown have made minimal cuts.  His rhetoric and his actions have been far from consistent.  And at the Unions, its business as usual.

Today, Assemblyman Don Wagner came out in favor of maintaining the Enterprise Zone program – and he doesn’t have on in his district.

By repealing the tax credits that fuel enterprise zones, California’s many employers who took the state at its word, located and grew their businesses in such zones, and have helped improve some of our struggling communities will instead find their tax bills climbing dramatically. This will leave them with less in their budgets for payroll, benefits, capital improvements and hiring.

At a time when California has the nation’s second highest unemployment rate, we will see more people collecting unemployment insurance rather than paying taxes. Additionally, businesses that set up shop in enterprise zones, will suffer from decreased productivity or have to shut down, thereby further reducing state and local revenues.

Read the full article.

Bill LaMarr, executive director of the California Small Business Alliance, deftly responds to the Bee’s Board about teh EZ:

Matthew Mahood of the Sacramento Metro Chamber sheds some important light on the EZ debate, particularly as cast by Dan Morain.  Mahood, a member of the business development community, points out three important points:

1.  The number of the qualifying employees is small compared to the total employee workforce and employers only receive the credit for qualified employees;

2.  Surrounding states are aggressively courting California companies, evidenced by the large numbers of companies that have left the state.  Even if the critique is true that “major” corprations get tax credits, these corporations are also “major” employers who pay the lion’s share of the corporate taxes; and

3.     California needs more business incentives not less.  The ones we have work.

Read the full article here.

Made public yesterday is a list of the members comprising a coalition formed in support of the Enterprise Zone Program.  The group includes many diverse and other times divergent groups who have come together to support the EZ program.  View the Joint EZ coalition list.

California’s budget problems dominate today’s political arena.   Without question, the biggest systemic problem draining the budget is one that most politicians are afraid to even approach.  Of course it’s the pension system.  No one seems willing to call out the patent iniquity in the public versus private workforce.  Jerry Brown on Friday did his part to quell the opposition to true pension reform by removing someone who championed for reform.