Saturday, April 23, 2011

California Raises Taxes and Texas Wins

From: Gay Patriot

A newly trentagenarian reader sent me a Steven Malanga’s piece about the outflow of jobs from the (once-)Golden State:
Over the last 15 years, California ranks as the third worst state in the country in terms of job migration, with a net outflow of jobs that is 1 percent greater than the flow of jobs into the state, according to the National Establishment Time Series database. Texas, by contrast, is 10th best in the nation in that period, with a plus 1.3 percent inflow of jobs from other states. Based on Vranich’s anecdotal list, Texas is the biggest beneficiary of jobs leaving California.
. . . .
There are many reasons for the cost differences between the states, but government clearly plays a role. The chief executive of CKE Restaurants Inc., a California based owner of restaurant chains, told Bloomberg News that it takes only six weeks to get approvals to open a new eatery in Texas, but up to two years in California. Given those dynamics, is it any wonder that Texas has been generating more net jobs through start-ups and expansions than California?
Unfortunately, it seems that the incumbent governor is clueless about the impact state regulation has on those costs. As Sonicfrog reminds us, Jerry Brown recently “signed into law legislation” mandating that “33% of all power generated in California was to be renewable.” Such a benchmark, Sonic adds, can only be met with “massive energy price increases by energy providers AND massive government subsidies”.


By increasing the cost to do business in California, the governor is doing little to stem the outflow of entrepreneurs and employment. In fact, his policies serve instead to encourage it.


ADDENDUM: Just as environmentalist seem to blame all manner of destructive natural phenomena on global warming, California Democrats have a rote response to the state’s economic, social and educational woes: “But [Governor Jerry] Brown also offered insight into his own thinking on the jobs gap between Texas and California by raising the issue of Proposition 13, the property tax cap which seems to be the default excuse for every California shortcoming these days.”

UPDATE: Writing about the trip to Texas that California politicians recently took (and is recounted in Malanga’s piece), Ed Morrissey holds that if CA Lt. Governor Gavin “wants to reverse” the growing trend of California companies relocating outside the state,
. . . he’ll have to start eliminating the red tape that forces business owners to take as long as two years to build and launch locations, as Carls Jr/Hardees executive Andy Pudzer told the group. The state needs to rid itself of its penchant for regulation, especially demonstrated in the episode concerning the California Air Resource Board’s use of a questionable study authored by an academic fraud that not only threatens to put independent trucking companies out of business, but also honest scientists that blow the whistle on the unseemly relationship between state-based Academia and regulatory boards such as CARB.

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