In business survey Texas “reigns supreme” but California makes “hall of shame,” again

Texans: Your much-maligned Lone Star State has been vindicated once again by none other than Chief Executive magazine.

In the eyes of the 550 CEOs surveyed on a wide range of criteria – from taxation to regulation to workforce quality and living environment — for the seventh consecutive year Texas “reigns supreme” and California bottoms out into the “hall of shame,” the publication reported.

Big business in Texas could count on a Republican majority in the Legislature and the governor’s mansion plus “right to work” laws, low corporate taxes and lax business regulations.

Meanwhile, California’s star-powered former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t pull it off for seven straight years, while a progressive-influenced Democratic legislative majority ran interference, and the public refused to drink the corporate Kool-Aid.

“Today’s soak-the-rich mentality hits business leaders especially hard,” Chief Executive CEO Marshall Cooper lamented, as the media reported corporate profits going through the roof and CEO bonuses spiraling out of control.

Never mind the lives of working-class families being battered by unemployment, home foreclosures, debt and insecurity.

Posting the biggest gains in the survey since 2010 is Wisconsin (along with Louisiana), where the corporate right-wing attack has been most intense but more recent, and so has the labor-led popular fight-back.

Meanwhile, Illinois, watch out. You are now in a “death spiral,” having dropped 40 places in five years, the magazine reported.

The magazine’s editor-in-chief J.P. Donlon noted, “A handful of states have made business-friendly policies a priority.”

However, Peter Schaub, a New York-based business consultant, told the Sacramento Bee, “It makes me wonder if a so-called business-friendly state is one that just rolls over for business without regard for things like pollution, business practices or treatment of workers.”

Ranking up there with Texas are four more southern states where “right-to-work-for-less” laws “reign supreme.” In order, they are North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.

At the bottom of the heap following California are Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois and New York – all states fighting to retain their union traditions against the corporate assault.