It was the best of times and it was the worst of times for economic growth.
The economy was coming out of the worst downturn in the past 75 years and states needed to act to see their economies grow.
One state believed that economic growth came when you embraced the policies that entrepreneurs of the 21st century want and need. That state invested in education at all levels, from preschool through higher education; it embraced science and supported cutting-edge research like stem cell research; encouraged and incentivized efforts that promoted the production of renewable energy and its related technology; and understood that employees are also consumers and supported a higher minimum wage and fair union bargaining laws. It took advantage of the federal stimulus monies and built high-speed rail, understanding what our competitors around the world value in a high-tech economy. It took advantage of all the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, such as expanding Medicaid so people could be treated early for their illness and have a chance to regain a normal life while local hospitals could lower their charity care costs, resulting in lower costs of health insurance for the entire state. It also understood that government regulations play a very important role in economic growth and constantly looked at China as a place to learn what not to do. It understood that many people in China can’t breathe their air, and they can’t trust the safety and purity of the medicines and many other products that they buy.
The other state thought that the answer to its growth was to do whatever it could to make the cost of doing business as low as possible in an effort to attract those businesses that would otherwise locate in a low-wage right-to-work Southern state or a developing nation. These footloose companies that provide lower-skilled jobs at lower wages want as little social investment as possible in order the keep their taxes low. They want to minimize the money spent on public education, since their jobs don’t require an educated workforce and their company’s top executives can always send their children to private schools away from the children of their workers. Government regulation is viewed as a nuisance. Why, they believe, should we be required to treat our chemical waste when there are states that allow us to simply discard it in a landfill? State laws that protect the health and safety of their workers just drive up their costs. They believe that if, 20 years down the road, their workers or members of a community develop cancer from a mine they built that despoiled the environment, it will be difficult for any lawyers to prove their case. These companies don’t pay their workers a fair wage or protect their health or safety, but they do invest in high-priced and unscrupulous lobbyists so if and when they are eventually brought to court for causing a cluster of cancer, the state Legislature will have weakened the laws enough to make it very difficult to sue the polluters or the companies with unsafe shop floors.
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Actually, is this a tale of two states or one state that made an abrupt U-turn?
