They Said It! Democrat Senate President Proclaims Ownership of California's Unemployment Crisis!

As California’s double-digit unemployment continues, Democrat Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told capitol reporters during a press briefing last Monday that Democrats will focus on job creation on their own, without input from Republicans:

"We intend on our own, as the majority party, to do all that we can, to put people back to work." [AUDIO]

But as quickly as Steinberg announced Democrats are now assuming full responsibility for job creation in California, he also made it clear not to expect much in the way of results:

"I don’t want to oversell though in the sense that um, you see how the national government is struggling to figure out to impact the unemployment numbers. California on its own, and certainly not in three and a half weeks, and certainly not with, you know, a series of bills, is going to turn that around overnight, but we have to do our part." [AUDIO]

More than two million Californians have lost their jobs in the past three years. Steinberg says that after six months of failed efforts to raise taxes, Democrats will now generously devote the remaining three weeks of the legislative session to job creation.

"These are three and a half very important weeks, and they’re weeks where our focus must be on doing everything we can to help the economy and put people back to work." [AUDIO]

A mere seven weeks after Democrat lawmakers passed their state budget plan, signed into law by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown, it’s collapsing under the weight of its rosy economic assumptions. According to State Controller John Chiang, the state took in about $4.7 billion in tax revenues in July, $538.8 million below 2011 budget projections.

Yet Steinberg still claims his flawed plan will be the key to California’s economic recovery:

"While balancing the budget is probably the most important thing we can do to maintain, you know, to instill confidence, that we also have a lot of legislative tools here to put people back to work." [AUDIO]

While Democrats were busy trying to raise taxes, Republicans were working to create jobs. But our common sense Republican-authored job creation bills for curbing frivolous lawsuits, increasing worker flexibility, analyzing regulatory impacts, and more were routinely killed in Democrat-dominated committees.

"How do we, in a responsible way, provide an economic impact analysis, that is standard, that is standardized across state agencies, whenever a new regulation is put forward?" [AUDIO]

And, even while Steinberg says Democrats will be focusing on job creation, at the same time they’ll be considering 13 more pieces of Democrat-authored legislation the California Chamber of Commerce has declared to be Job Killer bills. Cal Chamber’s 2011 Job Killers List.

Link to the full video of Monday’s press briefing: on.cagop.org/pYsNNg