Business group says state government dead, bring on corporate control

A group of business and political leaders based in Southern California says state government is pretty much dead.

“[R]elying on the government to fund our critical infrastructure needs . . . is no longer a viable option,” says the Southern California Leadership Council, which includes George Argyros, John Hawkins, Pete Wilson, Gray Davis and George Deukmejian.

The problem: California figures to grow by 5 million people in the next 20 years, and the Port of Long Beach/LA–already handing 40 percent of the nation’s imports, already the nation’s largest port–is likely to swell as China produces everything America consumes. “Southern California faces both the challenges (congestion and air quality) and the opportunities (more than one million new, good-paying logistics industry jobs) linked to this growth,” they say.

Notice, please, the group doesn’t suggest taxing China’s “cheap” imports to fund the infrastructure Long Beach needs to handle the apocalyptic tide of teddy bears, beds, clothes, coffeemakers and lead toys riding in the backs of trucks jacking up local freeways. That would limit corporate profit.

No, the solution is public-private partnerships—what SCLC has repackaged with a bitchen new name, P3s.

Public-private partnerships are supposed to bring marketplace efficiencies to public needs. In Iraq, the results have been mixed (see Blackwater and Halliburton).

Recommended reading:

CHINA: UC Irvine business professor Peter Navaro’s The Coming China Wars.

GEORGE ARGYROS: Some readers will remember Argyros from his failed effort to handle OC’s infrastructure needs by building a massive international airport in the middle of one of the state’s most densely populated counties.

Tags: , Blackwater, budget crisis, California, China, Deukmejian, El Toro Airport, George Argyros, Gray Davis, Halliburton, iraq, John Hawkins, Pete Wilson, Peter Navaro, Port of Long Beach, Schwarzenegger, trade deficit, traffic congestion