Businesses Flee State In Droves

Steven Greenhut: Liberal groups such as the Public Policy Institute of California have, along with the state’s legislative Democrats, made a cottage industry denying reports that businesses are leaving California. They note, correctly, that relatively few companies pull up stakes and move east. But these folks steadfastly ignore the evidence that California businesses, while leaving the brick and mortar headquarters here, tend to expand their job base elsewhere. They don’t look at the many jobs that are never created here because of the state’s punitive tax and regulatory climate. Here, Joe Vranich, reports, “In the seven weeks since the last report, another 11 companies have left California completely or re-directed substantial capital to build facilities out of state that in an earlier era would have been built here.”

I love California and am not going to leave it, but I work for a wage and am not a business owner. I can’t blame businesses, who often live on a tight margin, that decide to head to where the government is only an annoyance rather than their all-out enemy. The state won’t turn things around until more policy makers recognize that their policies are chasing away businesses and that these policies will make economic recovery that much harder in California. The weather and scenery are great, but people have to earn a living. Not everyone can be a government employee.