This is the latest news from the Senator's Office:

This past week it was announced that the unemployment rate increased to 6.9 percent in California, the highest rate in more than a decade and one of the highest rates in the nation. The unemployment rate in the Inland Empire hit 8 percent. A year ago, the unemployment rate in Riverside/San Bernardino Counties was 5.9 percent.

As the budget impasse begins its fourth week, Democrats continue to believe the solution to balancing the budget is with billions of dollars of new taxes. My Republican colleagues and I feel that the last thing we should do during an economic slowdown is raise taxes.

We tried that approach in the early 1990s when the Legislature tried to raise $7 billion in higher taxes to balance the budget, but those new revenues never materialized. In the year following the sales tax increase in 1991, the state generated only 50 percent of the $7 billion it anticipated. In the next three years - 1993, 1994 and 1995 - the state took in fewer sales tax dollars than in 1992. In fact, it took eight years before the state saw the $7 billion increase in sales tax revenue it anticipated when the 1991-92 budget was approved.

With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, gas prices well above $4 a gallon, housing foreclosures at an all-time high, not to mention the increased cost of food, I would say the last thing this economy needs is to be further weakened with tax increases.

I've always said the best social program is a good paying job. Instead of looking for additional ways to try and tax our way out of this budget crisis, we should be doing everything we can to help create jobs and opportunity.

Republicans are asked what can be done to balance the budget and we have offered several proposals that we believe can help stimulate the economy and generate additional dollars to the state through job creation - without raising taxes. Some of those ideas that will help stimulate the economy include:

Easing the burdens on workers by creating workweek flexibility.
Streamlining government to maximize limited tax dollars.
Ensuring more money goes to our classrooms and upholding voters' commitment to give 40 cents of every tax dollar to schools.
Establishing a spending limit and new rainy day fund to end chronic deficits.
Senate Republicans also have a website dedicated to the 2008-2009 budget crisis. It can be found at:

www.SenateRepublicanBudget.com.

I'll keep you up to date as the budget negotiations continue.