Small Business Day 2011

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Assembly Speaker John Perez assured attendees at California's Small Business Day that he was confident the legislature would meet its constitutional deadline to pass a budget by June 15. Perez's message was optimistic, even though it included concern for California's fiscal woes. The speaker acknowledged the state's unemployment problem, saying the legislature's principle task was to create jobs. He pointed to some tax credit legislation as proof of that effort.
 
The speaker said the recession has laid bare flaws in California's economic system, but did not offer specific remedies. He simply said now was the moment to protect California's legacy of entrepreneurship that goes back to the Gold Rush days.
 
The only advice he offered to solve the state's woes was to paraphrase a statement from former President Clinton: there is nothing wrong with California that cannot be fixed with what is right about California.
 
The state's small business advocate, Marty Keller, also hit a positive note pointing to declarations from President Obama and legislation by Senate president pro tem, Darrell Steinberg, to deal with regulatory burdens on small business. Keller said in his position as business advocate, the complaint he hears most often is that business suffers "the death of a thousand paper cuts" from the imposition of regulations.
 
Reducing the regulatory burden is also the focus of Winslow Sargeant, chief counsel for advocacy, in the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy set up as an independent voice for small business within the federal government.
 
Sargeant said that a study showed that the challenge of complying with federal regulations was much tougher on small business that large business.
 
Small business makes up an extremely important part of the California economy. According to Sargeant, the state has 3.5 million small businesses which employee 56-percent of private sector employees.
 
It is all connected: Freeing up the state's small business from many regulatory burdens will put California on the road to more job creation and, in turn, bring in more revenue to help solve the budget problem.