Skinner blasts Schwarzenegger on budget, taxes
By Josh Richman
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 3:37 pm in Arnold Schwarzenegger, Assembly, Nancy Skinner, state budget.
Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, this morning said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should put out his cigar, climb out of his Jacuzzi and move to help California’s struggling small businesses.
Skinner called a news conference at the corner of Solano Avenue and The Alameda in Berkeley, outside the vacant storefront formerly occupied by A Child’s Place. Near her podium was a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger with a cigar in his mouth, with the headline “While the state drowns in IOUs ARNOLD DOESN’T CARE” and featuring a quotation from this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine article on the governor’s method of coping with the stress of the budget crisis: “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight. I’m going to lay back with a stogie.”
Skinner said that’s pretty cheeky talk for a governor who nixed bills that would’ve helped solve the state’s cash crisis, avoided the need for the IOUs now going out and kept the deficit from growing by another several billion dollars. And it’s particularly distasteful, she said, to small businesses that are struggling through this recession even as Schwarzenegger proudly talks about vetoing a plan to collect sales tax from large online retailers doing business through California-based affiliates.
That plan was Skinner’s: initially introduced as AB 178, the idea was to follow New York’s lead in identifying an internet retailer’s affiliates based within the state as a “physical presence” or “nexus” — the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard on whether online retailers are subject to sales taxes in a given state. Doing so would level the playing field for small local businesses – which provide 82 percent of California’s jobs – that have no choice but to collect sales taxes, she said then and now.
Schwarzenegger “turned his back on California’s local businesses” by nixing the plan, Skinner said today, and turned away hundreds of millions of dollars per year in much-needed revenue for the state.
“We don’t want to hurt any business,” she said, but the wellbeing of local businesses should take precedence over keeping out-of-state businesses happy.
Berkeley City Councilman Laurie Capitelli, in whose district Solano Avenue’s once-bustling business corridor falls, agreed. “We love our neighborhoods and their small business districts and we need to support them,” he said. “We should not be subsidizing and supporting out-of-state businesses that don’t support us.”
And Solano Avenue Association President Bob Cheasty said the governor’s intransigence is “an abominable performance on his part.”
Asked for comment, Schwarzenegger press secretary Aaron McLear provided the answer the governor gave to a reporter who’d asked about the New York Times quote Monday:
“I’m always concerned about getting the budget done on time and I’m very much concerned about making sure that the state lives within its means. And I’m also very concerned about that we get rid of the fraud and the waste and abuse in our state, especially within our state system, because the people of California don’t mind to pay taxes but they do mind if their tax money is being wasted. So that’s the reality, how I feel.
“And as I have said many times, it’s a great honor for me to be governor and to serve the people of California and to do this as kind of being a public servant. This is, without any doubt, the biggest responsibility that I’ve ever had. But it’s also the most rewarding thing that I’ve ever done. And I think that everyone has certain talents and one of the talents that I have is and I think that comes from the sports background, that you can sometimes tune out and through meditation or other forms, so that you can go and have a few hours of relaxation. But at the same time I have to say that I have had a lot of sleepless nights about our budget and about what that means, when we cut certain programs and about the people that are behind those dollar figures when we make those cuts.”
See the news release Schwarzenegger issued last week blasting the online retailer sales tax plan, after the jump…
Following Overstock.com’s announcement that it will pull its affiliate advertising from California due to the legislature’s proposal to increase taxes and the announcements of other companies such as Amazon.com threatening to follow suit, Governor Schwarzenegger today reiterated his deep commitment to not raising taxes to solve our state’s budget deficit and announced Overstock.com will reinstate California-based internet affiliate advertisers:
“After passing the largest tax increase in California history, it makes absolutely no sense to go back to the taxpayers to solve the current shortfall – that’s why yesterday I vetoed the majority vote tax increase passed by the legislature. With unemployment at an all time high, we should be doing everything we can to - keep jobs and create jobs - in California. That is why my Administration immediately contacted Overstock.com when we learned of this news and, I am pleased to announce Overstock.com has reversed its decision and will continue to do business with affiliates here in California. I will continue to fight to keep jobs and businesses in California.”
California lawmakers proposed a tax on affiliate advertising and sent legislation to the Governor, but as promised he vetoed it because we cannot solve our budget deficit by raising taxes and driving businesses out of the state.
Overstock.com estimates its internet affiliate advertisers in California create millions of dollars in revenue.
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July 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Speaking as a life-long Democrat, I’m disgusted at how the Dems are dealing with the budget. That goes for DeSaulnier and Buchannan, both of whom I voted for. And Speaker Bass is acting like an 8-year-old. Two-thirds is a current reality. I hate it, but it is. That means new revenue is off the table. Repubs will let the state fall into the sea before they agree to any new revenue, especially with the economy the way it is. The sooner the Dems realize the guv holds the cards and bite the bullet on his cuts and reforms, the better. We’re going further in the hole by about $200 million with each week there is no budget. The guv not only holds the cards, but happens to be right on policy. The Dems offer to do the budget in installments was absurd, given the legislature’s total lack of credibility over the promise they would get around to the rest later. This thing makes me really, really angry.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Ol’ Nancy sure told off the Governator!(LOL)Leave it to Berkeley–Telegraph Ave. was almost killed off by toleration of runaway teen addicts and deranged homeless clogging the pavement–to get to the false heart of the matter.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Typical revolting dimmiecrat bleeding heart liberal brain dead Berkeley BS.
Skinner is a disgrace to the CA leg.
And that’s hard to do.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
And this is “news-worthy”? She’s from the People’s Republic of Bezerkeley, for Pete’s sake! What else should we expect?
July 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
From the CA Chamber of Commerce Job Killer List:
AB 664 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Increased Workers’ Compensation Costs.
Increases workers’ compensation costs by creating a legal presumption that neck and back injuries, and blood-borne and specific infections suffered by hospital employees are related to employment.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
My business would be directly harmed by AB 178, which discriminates against a kind of online advertising called affiliate marketing. The consequence of this legislation, as happened in New York, is that out-of-state retailers will sever their relationships with California-based affiliates. This means that California affiliates and related businesses (like mine) earn less money - in New York their income dropped off by 50%. Because nexus is thereby avoided, it also means no tax dollars for the state.
Representative Skinner is aware of these consequences and it is irresponsible for her to continue to peddle this nostrum. I applaud Governor Schwarzenegger’s common sense stance in defense of small business and fairness.
We employ five Californians full time and this type of legislation could force me to lay someone off.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
This crazy woman wants to help small businesses by taxing them. What a bonehead
July 8th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Folks,
The Golden State is definitely going down quickly, and it is legislators such as this one who still don’t get it about taxes. You do not raise them in a recession.
Also, why are California state workers making such high incomes and pensions, when the majority of Californians, especially small businesses, are simply folding and many are leaving the state by the droves to more tax friendly regions of the country?
Well, the Gipper’s fiscal discipline about limited government is being ignored completely, and when this state is completely broke by October and state workers and vendors haven’t been paid for a couple of months, will there be a change in how Californians view their government and its role in their lives?
Old Ronald is rolling in his grave!
July 8th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
“Speaker Bass is acting like an 8-year-old.”
Acutally, my eight-year-old grandson is much more mature. The speaker of the assembly! Imagine!
July 9th, 2009 at 10:01 am
The Skinner Bill AB178 could have killed my small business. We are surviving right now, but that tax bill could have been the nail in the coffin. Their estimate of $55 million in tax income would probably have come in close to zero, while at the same time killing my business and up to 25,000 others in California. Also losing state income tax and business renewals. Some other businesses in this area not only employ 30+ staff, but they are expanding right now, and they would have been forced to layoff staff, who not only wouldn’t pay state income tax, but some may have been forced to unemployment. The bill made no sense at all, practically guaranteeing damage to one class of small businesses that last year, generated around $125 million in state income tax.
The lobbyist driving this legislation was looking out for his sponsors, but they would not have been helped by it at all.
California obviously has a problem that needs to be fixed, but trying to fix it with this bill would have resulted in a further digging of the hole we are in. It could have pushed me to sell my home and it definitely isn’t a good time for that.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
If any further proof were needed that Skinner is a loony, one has only to read the comments in this thread.
Only Berkeley would elect this brain dead woman to anything.
July 11th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Well, now, this is truly fascinating. Let me see: Skinner suggests large national businesses that are currently evading their local sales taxes should stop that. It’s projected that these large businesses would respond by yanking their business from their small-business local affiliates — that is, that the national corporates would stick a knife in the back of our local business if they were asked to fulfill their civic duty to our area. Yet in this whole comment thread, all the moral outrage is directed against Nancy Skinner for making the suggestion that those corporates should not be evading paying their taxes. SHE is crazy and a loon, SHE would be killing our small businesses. Not the heinous behavior of those corporates. That right-wing corporate propaganda machine that cranks out the free-market snake oil sure is paying a huge return on investment! Business can be evil as it wants, and society must bow down to it. That’s the moral imperative today, folks. Wow. Just for fun, what if this tax passed, the corps screwed our locals, and Californians boycotted those corps in response? And made an extra point of doing other business with the locals to support them? If you don’t pay your taxes and follow the laws of society, you should be out and responsible businesses should and will take your place. And consumers should enforce that!