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Why Squirrels?

Have you seen Disney’s animated movie, UP? It’s a great story about Carl, a 78 year old retired salesman who ties balloons to his house and flies away with Russell, an 8 year old stowaway, and his faithful dog, Dug. It’s a wonderful story, very touching.

The dog, however, really caught our attention. Dug has a special collar that allows him to speak! He helps Carl and Russell on his adventures throughout the film, but does have one tragic flaw: Dug gets distracted by squirrels. He may be on the most important mission of his life, but when he sees a squirrel out of the corner of his eye, his attention is completely diverted and—“SQUIRREL!”—he says. Off he runs to chase it.

Doesn’t this remind you of some of our state leaders? The mission is jobs creation–private sector jobs creation–pure and simple. It’s about getting folks employed who can pay taxes, and businesses that hire, grow and pay taxes, that will help Sacramento get its house in order. How can a state leader help create jobs? In one of three ways: reduce taxes and fees; reduce the glut of regulations business faces every day; and reduce opportunities for frivolous lawsuits.

The Squirrel Effect

With a looming budget crises and lingering economic malaise, it would be nice to think the legislators are focused on the critical issues facing the state.  However, in the four days prior to the deadline, lawmakers introduced an impressive 1,321 bills in the Assembly and Senate.

That’s 330.3 a day, 13.8 an hour, or about one every five minutes. The last-days flurry brought the total of bills for the 2009-2010 session to 4,245. That doesn’t include the 806 resolutions, proposed constitutional amendments or measures introduced in the eight concurrent “extraordinary” sessions held so far.  Only slightly off the average (over the last five sessions) of 5,028 regular session bills, plus the hundreds of other kinds of measures.

A 2001-02 estimate, based on a study from the 1990s, reckoned the average cost of a bill – drafting of the measure by the legislative counsel, printing it, shepherding it through the committee process – was $17,890.  Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $20,900 in 2010 dollars.  Which means, the introduction of 1,321 new bills in February could potentially cost the state $27,608,900.

Help keep our legislation accountable. Send us your examples of Squirrel.

Click here to see the blog that got this whole thing started…