Aug

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The tourism Terminator

Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, flexing his muscles in a budget battle with his state legislature, has just dealt Hawaii a blow we really didn’t need.

A month into the fiscal year, the general assembly in Sacramento has yet to pass a budget. Money has run out to pay contractors, and cash is draining from state accounts as California fights wildwires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters for which the Golden State is noted.

After threatening to do something dire, and then sharpening his threats to be more specific, the Governator decided he had no choice but to actually keep his threats. He terminated thousands of temporary state employees and put 200,000 regular state workers on minimum wage.

The order, which came out Thursday, was sure to be met with court challenges by labor unions, and objections from the legislature, and of course the assembly is likely to actually approve a budget at some point. In other words, this will be resolved eventually.

But consider what has happened in the meantime.

Hawaii gets more visitors from California than from Japan, Canada, Oregon and Washington state combined. Visitor traffic from California in June ran 20% below year-before levels. The 80% of California visitor traffic that we’re still getting is people who feel comfortable about their personal finances and the security of their wages in a slowing economy.

Ordinarily, no one is more secure than government employees. We may hear otherwise from government employees, giving those of us who work in the private sector a chance to hee-haw bitterly, but generally speaking it is government workers who can count on employment, raises, good medical benefits, and secure pensions, while the rest of us can’t depend on any of that.

But Schwarzenegger has shaken the faith of California state workers that they’re so secure as that. Now they’re getting a tiny taste of what it’s like to suddenly have financial problems.

I’m thinking that many of these people are going to alter their view of spending $300 a night to relax on the Kaanapali Coast. And it may take awhile after resolution of the budget crisis in California before they again feel sanguine about their checking account.

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