The rejection by California’s voters of the four ballot initiatives proposed by Governer Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually big news for Arizona. All four will tend to drive business out of California, and much of that business will come to Arizona. This is from the Las Vegas Review Journal:
Certainly, California’s high tax climate is a direct result of a state government that refuses to curb its insatiable appetite for expansion. In addition, the promises made to government employee unions — promises that will continue to be made, if Tuesday’s vote is any indication — will only hasten the state’s need to capture more and more of the private sector’s output.
High real estate prices? Why, that wouldn’t have anything to do with burdensome regulatory environment governing land use, would it?
When you create conditions hostile to business, entrepreneurialism and economic growth, yet favorable to the advancement of big government — and when you turn back any effort to implement even modest reforms — the long-term results are easy to predict.
Brian Brady says:
Taxes are a problem in California. San Francisco now has a required” employee benefits law guaranteeing sick pay:
http://www.kmm.com/articles-370.html
The temptation for Arizona to emulate California’s benevolent socialism will be awfully difficult to quash after the East Coasters and Californians “get theirs” in AZ.
February 22, 2007 — 7:44 pm