Toyota's plan to close its Torrance headquarters and ship
3,000 jobs to a Dallas suburb has triggered a new round of hand-wringing among
those who see business-friendly Texas gaining at the expense of
regulation-choked California.
In Austin, Texas Gov. Rick Perry took a victory
lap, crediting his state's low taxes and hands-off policies. Lawmakers and
business lobbyists from Torrance to Sacramento said the Golden State must
unravel red tape and increase incentives if it hopes to compete for jobs. They
ridiculed Gov. Jerry Brown for not even knowing about Toyota's plans
to abandon his state.
The trouble is that taxes, regulations and business climate
appear to have had nothing to do with Toyota's move. It came down to a simple
matter of geography and a plan for corporate consolidation, Toyota's North
American chief told The Times. And in the big picture, California's and Texas'
economies are growing at a similar pace, with corporate relocations — in either
direction — representing only a tiny slice of job growth in both states.
"It may seem like a juicy story to have this
confrontation between California and Texas, but that was not the case,"
said Jim Lentz, Toyota's North American chief executive.
Toyota left California to move its company's brainpower, now
divided among offices in three states, into one headquarters close to the
company's manufacturing base, primarily in the South.
"It doesn't make sense to have oversight of
manufacturing 2,000 miles away from where the cars were made," Lentz said.
"Geography is the reason not to have our headquarters in California."
Click
here
for the full article in the LA Times.