Jerry Brown: 'We Need More Welfare and Fewer Jobs'

As David Harsanyi quips at Real Clear Politics, “rational Californians” — and really, is there any other kind? — “have a choice this November:”

They can keep the state’s economy humming by choosing the more sensible Jerry Brown, a man who once said that “the conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs.” [No really, he actually said this — Ed]

“More welfare and fewer jobs!” is a great campaign slogan and unequivocally not crazy.

You see, people need more time to relax. People work too hard. And that’s probably why Brown legalized public employee unions in California when he was governor in the magical ’70s. Look at how great that’s been for the economic health of the state.

Just to recap: Meg Whitman, radical. Jerry Brown, awesome.

It’s been quite an education watching the evolution of what are acceptable positions in this country. Also confusing.

If you believe Americans should have some limited ability to make choices — say, in Social Security or the purchase of government-sanctioned health insurance — you are, at best, a latent racist and probably listen to Rush Limbaugh.

If you add $5 billion of debt every day of your presidency — as Barack Obama has done with the help of Congress since he entered office — you are a contemplative moderate.

If you believe in drilling for more oil, you are at best a wretched boob, at worst a tool of corporate interests.

But if you support the corporate interest of creating a fabricated market for the non-commodity of carbon dioxide so it can be “traded” and taxed to deliberately make energy expensive for citizens … well, you’ve got some serious smarts.

Or, in other words, sanity is liberal orthodoxy, and the Cuckoo’s Nest is everything else.