YouTube

Print

Elk Grove Citizen: Congressman Lungren on Sacramento's recent job losses

By Rep. Dan Lungren - Special to the Citizen
Published: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 4:26 PM PDT

The best social welfare program is a job.

Comcast recently announced it is moving 1,000 jobs out of the Bay Area and Sacramento. Campbell Soup this week announced it will terminate 700 jobs and close its plant in Sacramento. These headlines are just the latest reminder that the economic environment in California is toxic.

Just last December, the largest publicly traded company in our region, Folsom’s Waste Connections announced it was packing its bags for Texas. The main reason for their relocation is the same one stated and later retracted by Comcast: “It is too difficult to do business in California.”

Now, although Campbell Soup did not make this claim, I am confident it was a factor in their decision to close their plant in Sacramento.


At a time when our unemployment is well above the national average, my number one priority has been to do all I can to help, not hinder, the creation of jobs for Americans who are struggling in this economy. Creating an environment that encourages businesses – large and small – to reinvest, expand, and hire more people should be the goal for all elected officials.

In Congress the past two years, I have supported 42 pro-growth, pro-jobs bills.

I have signed my name in support of the One New Employee Act, which would provide tax credits to small businesses that hire a new employee who was unemployed and receiving unemployment benefits. I have also signed on to the Small Business Tax Cut Act that would allow a qualified small business a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of the lesser of qualified domestic business income or taxable income. The latter of these two bills passed the House of Representatives in a bipartisan vote and currently awaits consideration in the Senate.

California was once a magnet for business and jobs. Today, the toxic mix of high taxes, future tax increases, over regulation, high energy costs, and an unfriendly legal environment is killing our state. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better.

My friend Jack Kemp once said, “When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property, they have little or no stake in their communities.”

When our companies that provide those jobs move to greener pastures in other business-friendly states, it is a body blow to the families who are connected to those companies, the communities they live in and the entire state.

Now is the time to focus on the factors that are causing the exodus and make California desirable for business again.

Dan Lungren (R-Gold River) represents Elk Grove in California’s 3rd Congressional District.

Click here for article