Following Jerry Brown, governor of California, at the Commonwealth Club podium, Wilson discusses the Humphrey-Hawkins bill and its approach to unemployment--massive public service employment. Wilson draws a fundamental distinction between public and private sector employees, in that the government does not exist to make a profit. In the private sector, consumers can choose whether to buy more costly products, but taxpayers have no such choice with public services. He goes on to discuss public employee strikes, compulsory binding arbitration, and their impact on taxes, providing examples from San Diego and Oakland. California is already ranked near the bottom in terms of attractiveness to industry; public service strikes threaten to further lower this ranking. The solution is a 1978 California initiative to outlaw public sector strikes.

Wilson's biography includes: Mayor, San Diego, 1971-83; member, US Senate, 1983-91; governor, California, 1991-99; fellow, Hoover Institution, 1999- .