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Overregulation: As California's pumped-up governator prepares to push a costly cap-and-trade law on the state's manufacturers, CEOs are sending a not-so-subtle message to him: Your state stinks.
Hearing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tout his job-killing environmental law at a time California is hemorrhaging jobs couldn't help but be demoralizing and confusing for the state's citizens and businesses.
Recent polls show Californians in a deep funk over the state's prospects. A new study of corporate leaders in Chief Executive magazine shows why. Asked to rank states by business climate, CEOs put California dead last. Texas was No. 1.
For those who live in California, reading the remarks of the CEOs is as eye-opening as it is depressing. For example:
• "Texas is pro-business with reasonable regulations while California is anti-business with anti-business regulations."
• "California is terrible. Even when we've paid their high taxes in full, they still treat every conversation as adversarial. It's the most difficult state in the nation. We have actually walked away from business rather than deal with the government in Sacramento."
• "The leadership of California has done everything in its power to kill manufacturing jobs in this state. If we could grow our crops in Reno, we'd move our plants tomorrow."
Not so happy, are they? Want more specifics? Here are just a few:
• "Among the highest state income and sales taxes in the nation."
• "Unemployment ... of 12.6%, one of the highest in the nation."
• "State politics seem consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it."
• "Union density is increasing, contrary to national trend, from 16.1% of workers in 1998 to 17.8% in 2002."
• "Unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade."
The Chief Executive magazine report follows last year's alarming "Manufacturing 2.0" study by California's Milken Institute. It showed California suffering a collapse of its manufacturing sector on a magnitude of the one that killed Michigan's economy.
California's long-term job losses are downright ugly. Since 2001, while politicians dither and spend, 634,000 factory jobs have disappeared along with 34% of the industrial base. From 2003 to 2007 alone, according to the Milken report, 79,000 jobs were lost due to excessive regulation and too-high taxes.
But if California's private companies are suffering, its public sector sure isn't. From 2001 to 2009, California lost 235,000 net private-sector jobs, but gained 163,700 government jobs. Those cushy union jobs also pay more than comparable private jobs and provide gold-plated benefits. Now Californians find they actually have to pay for this foolishness.
Homeland Security: New York's "mayor for life" conjectured that the Times Square bomber was a Tea Party type, not the Islamist next door. All that gazing in mirrors is skewing Mayor Bloomberg's sense of reality. Interviewed Monday by Katie Couric for CBS Evening News, The Ego That Ate New ...
Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an ...
War On Terror: A Muslim-American terrorist's car bomb didn't go off as planned in New York's busy Times Square. But it explodes a number of stubborn myths about the homegrown threat. Myth No. 1: The only violent citizens we need to worry about these days are anti-government Tea Party types ...
Obama Double Standard Disease: an affliction that causes the media to ignore, rationalize or trivialize to defend, support and advance the tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth, expand-the-government agenda of the president and his party. This stands in stark contrast with media treatment of those who ...
There is something exquisite about the moment when a conservative decides he needs more government in his life. About 10:30 Monday morning, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., an ardent foe of big government, posted a blog item on his campaign Web site about the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "I ...
Posted By: mo23f(40) on 5/5/2010 | 1:49 AM ET
Whether it's California or the US govt, we have elected fiscal sociopaths to run things, and we are now entering the final stages of that nightmare. The illusion of the monetary system will soon completely unravel, and we will be left to pick up the pieces. Reminds me of a novel I read a few years ago called A Distant Crossing. It began with a monetary meltdown. Presient.
Posted By: Eric(135) on 5/4/2010 | 11:24 PM ET
The only danger to red, business friendly states like Texas are Liberal Californians fleeing California without having a clue as to why CA is collapsing. If Liberals leaving CA and other Lefty states can't stop voting for Democrats they should be forbidden to enter red states or forbidden from voting.
Posted By: antisocialist(360) on 5/4/2010 | 10:42 PM ET
That's funny. A few years ago people were disparaging Texans for being such free spirits. Comments like "Don't mess with Texas" were considered radical. Now look. Texas has held true to federalism and the state's rights that come with it. Behold the shining city on the hill. IF the federal government doesn't impose its one-size-fits-all laws and regulations on us, we will still have the option of moving to a state like Texas that has its s**t together.
Posted By: mega_spen(50) on 5/4/2010 | 9:00 PM ET
Appears the bloom is definetly on the yellow rose of Texas!
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