CA among the worst in national manufacturing investment

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on March 16, 2012

California is still not receiving its fair share of national manufacturing growth.

Site Selection Magazine released its annual data last week for manufacturing facilities investment by state. We asked them for the dollar amounts and then normalized those numbers for population and combined them with the previous four years to provide a five-year per capita investment window. It shows that California is not at all prepared to receive and grow manufacturing investment for our hundreds of thousands of unemployed middle class workers.

The national average for per capita manufacturing investment was $2,073, while California only received $325 -- second lowest only to Connecticut. California even slipped from last yea's four-year ranking three places.

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Six of fourteen most unemployed regions are in California

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on Dec. 7, 2010

The Wall Street Journal published the unemployment rates by metropolitan area today. Six of the top fourteen were in California, including the worst region - Riverside/San Bernadino at 14.2%. The worst city was also in California - El Centro at 29.3%.

More proof that the 2011 legislative session must focus on California's unfortunate leadership on joblessness.

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Still waiting for reasonable policies to launch long-term job creation

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on Aug. 6, 2010

In the closing weeks (or months) of California's 2010 legislative session, there are some easy decisions to make in a morass of tough budgetary ones. Lawmakers can get control of the state's spiraling regulatory environment and reconsider simple concepts on economic analysis on new and existing regulations.

Dozens of bills died in the last few months that would demonstrate the state's commitment to improve government decision making and signal that California welcomes long-term job creation and economic growth. What can possibly be wrong with arming a jobs-sensitive legislature with job-impact information so they can make informed decisions?

A flyer -- titled Still Waiting -- and a copy of a previous letter -- supported by more than 350 companies -- were distributed this week to the Legislature to reinforce that the employer community is still waiting for these very simple and obvious measures.

Texas Governor Rick Perry was reportedly in California this week to recruit businesses to his state. The Lone Star behemoth has increased its jobs base by 580,000 since 2001, while California has lost 976,000 badly needed jobs. Gov. Perry is clearly not waiting for us.

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What's the big deal? -- Economic Impact analysis bill stirs big fight on Assembly floor but not about the bill

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on June 16, 2010

A red herring is a "purposeful attempt to divert attention from an item of significance." It is exactly what some lawmakers decided to do earlier this month.

A bill to get better economic impact analysis for regulations (AB 2529) came to the Assembly Floor on Thursday, June 3. To put the bill's broad appeal in perspective, the city of San Francisco and the Clinton administration have supported similar efforts in the past.

The opposition was outraged that the bill was amended in Appropriations before passing to the floor for a vote. Trust me when I say that this process is regularly employed by this legislature as it moves bills. The problem this time is that lawmakers who are usually in charge of the process didn’t like the bill, but they decided to mostly bark about the process. The few times the opposition departed from their "shredding of integrity and deliberative process" complaints, they expressed fear that certain industries or stakeholders will be unfairly advantaged while others would be harmed by the bill. It begged the question that was left unanswered: What harm could arise from a more accurate economic analysis?

The rift in the majority democratic party didn’t stop the bill from moving out of the Assembly with 44 votes thanks to the bill author, Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, Speaker John Perez, 15 other Democrats and almost all of the Republicans.

You can watch the debate here -- Part 1 | Part 2 -- to see for yourself. You can see the vote here . Once the vote was final, 35 legislators (33 Dems and 2 Reps) abstained or voted against the bill.

This lawmaking body also spent a half hour on the floor two weeks ago passing a California-only plastic bag ban -- all while California tries to dig itself out of a $19 billion deficit -- with no independent economic analysis to help themselves make an informed decision. In fact the bill was almost passed as an economic model for growth. Basically, the "California gets to lead" notion is enough and real economic information is just too scary to absorb.

Someone said to me this week, "It's nuts, they are fighting over marbles while the school is burning." Nothing was truer in legislative episodes this month.

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Leadership on jobs growth emerging

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on Feb. 10, 2010

California has often claimed leadership on many big issues and movements. It's time for policymakers to claim leadership where it matters most -- growing our job base. A 12.4% unemployment rate, a $20 billion state deficit, a manufacturing sector that lost more than 607,000 jobs since the decline started, and a negative 5.97 public-to-private sector job ratio since 2001 leaves California in a stranglehold of deterioration.

Both parties introduced jobs packages in the last 24 hours that indicate the Legislature is now focused on leading us out of this mess with a policy environment that at least thinks of job impacts first. Up until now, the employer, employee and unemployed communities in California were left wondering why California leads on everything but jobs and our economy.

Both parties deserve credit for working to put something together, but there are delineations in the two proposals that must be pointed out. The democrat proposal is almost solely based on government created jobs, while the republican proposal sends signals to the private sector that California will create a competitive job creation climate with reduced costs and flexible regulations. (The latter covers many of the themes in CMTA's campaign asking policymakers to understand economic and job impacts of existing and new regulations.)

An answer to the two different proposals lies in a look at California's private-public sector job ratio and Texas' job and revenue growth. According to the Bureau of Labor statistics data, for every new California government job since 2001, the state LOST 5.97 private sector jobs. That hurts ... bad. It translates into an environment that has literally picked the winner in California -- government. On the flip side, over the same nine years the Lone Star state's focus on flexible regulations and lower costs (CA is 57% higher in taxes than Texas) has given them 484,600 new private sector jobs and, consequently, the money to pay for important government services -- to the tune of a $2 billion surplus in 2009. In other words, produce the wealth first, then pay for increased government.

With a plan that cuts costs, eases regulations with flexibility, and eliminates lawsuit abuse, the Republicans understand that our recovery starts with a competitive environment for our large and small businesses.

While there are quality proposals in the democrat plan -- such as streamlining small business permitting with one-stop shops -- they rely too heavily on spending dollars we don't have to create new government programs and new government jobs. Part of their plan actually eliminates furloughs and redirects tax dollars into more public sector jobs.

The re-directed leadership is appreciated by all working families and employers in California, no doubt. Now it's just time to get it right. If we do, we just might get on the cover of Time Magazine for the leadership this state deserves.

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