Texas makes pitch to California businesses

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is thanking California Gov. Jerry Brown for his recent likening of the Lone Star State’s new ad campaign airing in the Golden State to “barely a fart.” Perry’s new pitch to lure California businesses to Texas includes the $24,000 radio ad buy launched last week. Perry says Brown’s criticism of the effort—especially the “fart” sound bite that has captured national headlines—easily amounts to about $1 million worth of free publicity. “Oh, it was awesome,” Perry tells The San Francisco Chronicle. “Thank you, Jerry; he’s the gift that keeps on giving.” Perry is criticizing California for what he calls its high taxes, runaway spending, regulatory overload and “the philosophy that comes out of Sacramento—we’re going to squeeze this beet and get every last drop of juice out of it.” Texas, Perry says, is much more accommodating to millionaires and businesses. But Perry also wants it known that, contrary to critics, he’s not engaged in unseemly job poaching. “That’s semantics. I call it opportunity,” he says. “When you’re fishing, you go where the fish are. I’m not out here forcing anybody to rent a van and head to Texas. We’re just giving a sales pitch here. It’s up to them to make the decision.” Perry has been meeting with companies in California recently in a bid to get them to relocate to Texas. He won’t disclose all those he’s speaking with, but one of them is Hass Automation, a $1 billion computerized machine tool manufacturer with 1,500 employees in a million-square-foot plant in Oxnard. Read the full story here.