Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The exodus from California

It has been predicted, and now it has begun: The exodus of businesses from California. Somewhat quietly, Nissan last week announced they were moving their North American headquarters and 1300 jobs from California to Tennessee.

California has actually become a ridiculous place to try to do business. It has a highly regulated culture, taxes are high, the cost of living is high, and over the road transportation is a snarled mess. As a result, it is expensive to run a business in California. I know a small businessman that realized this 5 years. Rather than lose his business, he opted to pick up his family and business and relocate to Colorado, which was more business friendly.

I'm hoping (perhaps in vain) that our representatives and Governor in Madison are observant. Wisconsin isn't the most friendly business state. It may not be as unfriendly an environment as California, but Wisconsin doesn't have a lot of the natural blessings that California does, either. Minnesota and Illinois would love to steal away any number of Wisconsin businesses, and in recent years they've been successful. It may be natural for a Democrat to take a position that is passive aggressive to business in their effort to appear progressive and populist, but that is a very dangerous game to play in a highly competitive environment amongst the states for businesses. A state economy needs a healthy business environment and lots of jobs to pay for expensive progressive government programs. If you drive the businesses and jobs across your borders, it gets real difficult to pay for those programs.

No comments: