A series of columns in the Wall Street Journal in the last month shed light on one of those choices - states' posture toward union membership.

A little history:

Late in 2009, in the middle of the recession, the Boeing Co, facing a backlog of orders for its new 787 Dreamliner, broke ground on a second assembly plant near Charleston, S.C.

The company's first Dreamliner assembly plant was built in Everett, Wash., in 2003.

The $1 billion South Carolina investment is the first big airline plant built in the United States in 40 years.

The 1.2-million-square-foot facility is almost ready to go. A thousand workers are being trained to begin production in July.

With the economy teetering on the verge of a double-dip recession, Americans thirst for more such economic news. 

But in April, the Obama administration's National Labor Relation Board filed a complaint to force Boeing to move the production line back to Washington State. The NLRB contends Boeing's investment in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, was an unlawful retaliation against its unionized employees in Washington State.

The company has suffered strikes at that facility.

Boeing vowed to contest the matter, which led to the first column by Jim McNerney, Boeing's chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Among other things, McNerney denied that the company is opposed to unions or is making a mass exodus to right-to-work states. Boeing operates in 34 states, only half of them right-to-work.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., also reacted to the NLRB's decision to go after Boeing.

In 1979, when he was governor of Tennessee, he wrote, then-President Jimmy Carter urged public officials: "Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here."

Alexander went to see Nissan executives, who were trying to figure out where to put their first U.S. plant.

Tennessee won over Kentucky.

"Tennessee has a right-to-work law and Kentucky does not," Alexander wrote. "This meant that in Kentucky workers would have to join the United Auto Workers union. Workers in Tennessee had a choice."

More than 30 years later, Tennessee has seen a $5 billion investment by General Motors (the Saturn-United Autoworkers plant has since closed), and a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.

Alexander pointed out that Honda, Toyota, BMW, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai "and thousands of suppliers have chosen southeastern right-to-work states for their plants."

Which brings me to the third column, by Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore, co-authors of "Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status."

A lot of Americans would certainly like to know that.

The subhed on Laffer and Moore's column was this:

"Between 2000 and 2008, 4.8 million Americans moved from forced union states to right-to-work states. That's one person every minute every day."

West Virginians know some of those people by name.

Sometimes they come here at Thanksgiving. Sometimes we move there to be closer to the grandchildren.

"Right-to-work states are also getting richer over time," said Laffer and Moore.

Economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University found a 23 percent higher per capita income growth rate in right-to-work states than in forced-union states. From 1977 to 2007, it amounted to a $2,760 larger increase in per capita income in those states.

"That's a giant differential," wrote Laffer and Moore.

Well, yes.

West Virginians don't hear much talk about right-to-work laws, which let individuals decide whether to join unions.

Too bad.

West Virginians don't hear much talk about billion-dollar investments either.

Maurice is editorial page editor of the Daily Mail. She may be reached at 348-4802 or ha...@dailymail.com.