California is once again close to being number one. Figures released this week confirmed that California is nearing the highest unemployment rate in the country (See http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-jobs-20110820,0,4509349.story).
While this may not be the same as the number one in education, or even number one in innovation, it represents an achievement for which the Left can be proud. High taxes, massive regulations, and government-mandated employee benefits, have allowed California’s unemployment rate to go well above the national average. Despite the dire news, some liberal politicians still don’t understand what they have done and seem determined to get California into the top spot.
Los Angeles’ Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa revealed this week that he doesn’t get it. Mayor Villaraigosa and his team probably thought he was engaged in act of “political courage” by calling for a substantial revision of Proposition 13. Mayor Villaraigosa suggests that it is a corporate tax giveaway and proposes removing its protections for California businesses. (See http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=8310262).
That the Mayor would push for more taxes on business reveals an alarming misunderstanding of economics and incredible arrogance. It represents a line of thinking from the Left that harkens back to a bygone era: California is the Golden State so companies want to be here and they will pay whatever it takes to stay.
Apparently the mayor hasn’t noticed those trucks and moving vans heading east on Interstate 10. I suppose he’s not aware that there is a Governor of Texas, who has been in the news recently, who has actively solicited California businesses to his state with lower taxes and less regulation. Apparently Mayor Villaraigosa has not noticed that Texas’s unemployment rate is significantly below California’s (See http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011/08/State-unemployment-rates-almost-unchanged-in-July/50059780/1.) Nevada and Arizona also haven’t been shy about encouraging migration east. Mayor Villaraigosa doesn’t understand that people have a choice where they do business.
Mayor Villaraigosa, as he plans his bid for the U.S. Senate or the governorship, may even find himself behind the thought curve of many of his liberal allies. In my community of Claremont, a normally Left-leaning academic community, we have faced declining sales tax revenues largely due to the fact that the city became reliant on auto sales. For decades, the flow of money from auto sales allowed the city to discriminate in the types of businesses it recruited or sought under the banner of “that’s just not Claremont“. Now we have realized that empty storefronts and retail centers aren’t Claremont either.
Later this month a Norm’s restaurant will open up in Claremont. A Super King grocery store will go into a largely abandoned retail center. There was a time when those businesses would not have been able to open in Claremont as the town’s elders would have suggested they were not reflective of the community. Difficult times call for new thinking however.
Mayor Villaraigosa proved this week however that new thinking is not part of his skill set. He remains caught in the old leftist way of thinking that there is not a budget problem that additional taxes can’t solve and California's businesses should have a big fat target on their backs. Thus he proposes revising Proposition 13 and increasing taxes on businesses in the state nearing the highest unemployment level in the nation. If we let him, he'll get us to number one.
Comments