Unions Chasing Jobs Out of California

In the wake of the election on November 2nd, 29 of the 50 states have Republican governors (ref. Real Clear Politics), and they are all looking to California to woo companies. Can California live on green jobs and agriculture? Because that’s about all that’s going to be left under the combined weight of the global warming act and the state and local government’s insatiable demand for more tax revenues to pay over-compensated government employees.

Here’s a good article about what’s about to hit California from economic development departments from Nevada to Texas and beyond: “New Republican governors eye California businesses,” by Jim Christie, Reuters, November 30, 2010.

And here’s what Jim Christie, reporting from San Francisco, quotes from California Labor Federation head Art Pulaski, in regards to the Democratic annihilation of Republicans in California: “It’s a testament to California’s voters that they had the foresight to beat back the tidal wave of corporate-controlled candidates that swept much of the rest of the country.”

Mr. Pulaski is right about waves and beatings, but he’s identifying the wrong culprit. It was the union controlled candidates in California who beat back a wave of financial sanity that is beginning to restore sustainable government to the rest of the U.S.

Someone who serves in a State Senate in a state which, out of courtesy, we won’t identify, spent this past week in Washington DC. His mission? To meet with the heads of the bond rating agencies and make a presentation to them on the relative health of state government and municipal bonds in California vs. other parts of the country. Their objective? To accelerate the inevitable downgrading of bonds issued by California’s union controlled cities and counties that finance their deficit spending.

Opponents of NAFTA, most of them union bosses, described what they said would be a “great sucking sound” as jobs would flee to Mexico and elsewhere if the NAFTA agreement were ever passed. If you stand on the crest of the Sierra these days, that sucking sound can be heard. But it’s coming from the east, not the south.