If I am not mistaken the minimum wage for workers will make one hell of a lot of state workers eligible for food stamps and perhaps other subsistence programs which in turn will put a greater burden on the state and state workers who process public assistance claims. College tuitions won't get paid. Hotels and restaurants will lose business. Dental appointments will be canceled. A lot of money that normally comes from state workers will not be spent supporting local businesses.
I would imagine most citizens in California are going to get the kind of government service minimum wage pays for. It probably won't be pretty.
These days I've found that my faith in capitalism has waned considerably. In fact almost daily I discover more and more and feckin more of my country that has been ravaged by raw, unbridled capitalism. A bit of socialism in the mix would be a good thing. It seems California is willing to die for its Republican belief in capitalism. After the state workers it will soon hit the private businesses and the public.
A guy high up the ladder in Az Homeland Security once told me that the real threat to Arizona is California. He is unquestionably conservative and he was dead serious in what he said. Naturally I asked him what the hell he meant. He said that eventually California will become unglued either by a manmade or a natural disaster. He mentioned a couple of good sky burst nukes over international waters fired perhaps by a North Korea or Chinese sub. He said it could be a conex box at a port filled with nuclear waste and detonated at the doc. Or he said, earthquake, viral epidemic or a tsunami.
He said, people will have 3 evacuation choices: north, south or east. Human nature says the bigger the disaster the less likely the population will head north or south. Most, he said will head for Arizona and Nevada, to large cities where they rightly believe they will most likely find shelter and assistance. Let's be honest, not many people are going to show up in places like
Nowhere, Arizona looking for help and a handout. A couple three or four million people arriving in Phoenix and Las Vegas would be a traveling disaster. It would quite literally create a disaster here and in Nevada, actually Phoenix and Las Vegas.
I cannot say this as something I know personally, but we have heard for a while now that more and more economic refugees from California are arriving in Arizona. We can't afford them. We don't have jobs for them. There's no doubt in my mind the $7.25 salary mandate for California state workers is going to create another huge wave of economic refugees. As we've had 7 days in a row over 110 degrees (yesterday was 115 and today 113) perhaps most of the new batch of refugees will land in Oregon and Colorado this time of the year.
