I'm sorry. "Economic girlie men." Note to Mr. Schwarzenegger: The minimum wage is not the reason business is moving out of California. It's the reason PEOPLE are moving out of California - or just ending up collecting unemployment.
Oh yeah. He scored a victory for Wal*Mart, too.
Your big honkin' movie hero at work for the gullible schnooks who voted for him.
Gov. Vetoes Minimum Wage Hike
Schwarzenegger also axes a bill that would have made retailers such as Wal-Mart pay for studies of proposed stores' economic impact.
Aligning himself with business leaders in perhaps his most unambiguous way yet, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday vetoed a measure to boost California's minimum wage to the nation's highest, instead leaving it at the lowest level on the West Coast.
Schwarzenegger also rejected legislation that would have required giant retailers such as Wal-Mart that wanted to open colossal stores to first finance studies showing whether they would hurt the neighborhood economy and affect traffic.
Together, the two vetoes and accompanying explanations were some of Schwarzenegger's clearest articulations of where his views lie in disputes between business and labor.
"In recent years, the high cost of doing business in California has driven away jobs, businesses, and opportunity," Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto of the minimum-wage bill, AB 2832. "Now is not the time to create barriers to our economic recovery or reverse the momentum we have generated. I want to create more jobs and make every California job more secure."
California's minimum wage has been $6.75 an hour since 2002. The bill passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature would have raised it by 50 cents on July 1, 2005 and then to $7.75 a year later. The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, the author of the minimum-wage bill, said Schwarzenegger's veto was disappointing. "The state minimum wage is under the federal poverty line," said Lieber (D-Mountain View). "This veto is evidence that you can't serve two masters. You either side with the corporate interests or the people. Schwarzenegger sided with the corporate interests."
