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California's Dreaming
California's Dreaming
By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
In early May, we like to visit California. It is spectacular, beautiful, and special. Our hero Ronald Reagan once said, "if the pilgrims had landed in California, we would have never found the rest of the country." He was right. Today he would be wrong.
Pilgrims were productive settlers, and today successful and productive citizens are fleeing in mass from California. It is a shame.
First stop on our trip is Oakland. Floyd has a meeting with an innovative medical specialty firm trying to start in California. The owner of the firm has started many companies, all in California. Early on the agenda for discussion was talk of moving out of the Golden State to another less regulated, business friendly state.
The wife of the CEO leaned over to me and said, "as soon as our son is out of high school, we are out of here." Maybe they will join us in business friendly Arizona, or move on to the new Mecca for business, Texas. She continued, "they don't seem to get it, HP and Intel will never build another plant in California.
Until the 1990's, California was run by a coalition of pro-business Republicans and Democrats. Then things changed. A tipping point was hit through a combination of illegal immigration, environmental regulations and union control of government. Business started to flee, and they took conservative voters with them as they left. Demographics is destiny, and California surged to the left. This surge left compounded the problem and more business left.
Business leaving caused government revenue to slip, so taxes were hiked. This caused even more to leave. Union control of state budgeting shifted priorities. Salaries and benefits rocketed upward, infrastructure was ignored and neglected. Roads and transportation suffered. And more business left.
California used to be first in airplanes, most aviation companies have fled. California used to be first in defense, and now this sector is shrinking. California agriculture is suffering from lack of water. This is a direct result of failure to invest in new water capacity. California was a leader in energy production, but now most of costal California is off limits to new oil production.
With all the jobs California used to produce, real estate flourished. Now with empty store fronts and empty factories, real estate is suffering. Even tourism is down.
You would think this string of disasters would teach leaders in government to be more business friendly? They haven't learned, and taxes, regulation and harassment of business is growing.
We continued down the coast, and near Santa Barbara we met the CEO of another firm. The message was the same. He lamented, "California used to be the best place to do business, now it is the worst, and Governor Jerry Brown is only making it worse."
Schools, communities, parks, good roads, and all the factors that made California so wonderful can only get better when business does well. If leaders want to lead again in lifestyle they must first restore the business climate.
©2012 Floyd and Mary Beth Brown. The Browns are bestselling authors and speakers. To comment on this column, email browns@caglecartoons.com. Together they write a national weekly column distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info call Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or e-mail cari@cagle.com. Floyd is also president of the Western Center for Journalism.
This column has been edited by the author. Representations of fact and opinions are solely those of the author.
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Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, 5/6/2012 [
