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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Jerry Brown for Governor, Part II

Today's San Diego Union-Tribune features interviews with both Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman. These interviews tell you why we should elect Jerry Brown. There's not a single thing in the interview with Brown that makes even the slightest mathematical sense. Dig this one.
Q: If you are elected governor, how would you create jobs?

A: There’s nothing more important than jobs...My plan is very precise: 20,000 megawatts of new renewable energy, and to do that by 2020. That will create 500,000 jobs. I’m not talking just about a few jobs in the desert; I’m talking about retrofitting all the buildings in California, putting young people to work.
This is lunacy on so many levels. Renewable energy is more expensive than coal, gas or oil. Building more of it will cost more with the difference made up by ... unicorns and fairies and sprites and pixies and ...

There's nothing Meg can accomplish given the childlike legislature we have, one that believes in the aforementioned unicorns, et al. Here's an example.
Q: How do you fix the budget?

A: ...Number two is reform public employee pension benefits. We have gone from spending $300 million a year on public employee pensions in 2000 to $3.9 billion. We cannot have civil servants retire at 55 with much of their salary and health care benefits to the day they die. The third is welfare reform. We have 12 percent of the population of the United States and 32 percent of the welfare cases. We have the longest benefits and welfare practically in the country.
You can just see it now. Resistance in the legislature, the media, the entertainment industry and the hipsters in Silicon Valley will center around Meg's heartless, racist attempts to roll back the clock and stop progress. The hipsters and opinion makers won't have to examine any of their core beliefs. She'll get nothing done and be the perfect punching bag.

Our choice is clear: California must remain the liberal petri dish so we can see and compare its festering mess with other states.

Jerry Brown for governor. Science dictates we must elect him.

1 comment:

  1. My only disagreement with your position (assuming I understand you correctly) is that there is a Limit of Wretchedness that, when reached, will stimulate the citizenry to wake up and vote differently.

    That, I think, is not in the cards. A mindset exists that is incapable of shifting to "OMG, we've gone too far!" One need only look at Detroit or read Paul Krugman to know that for some people, the only response to failure is to double down on the precise policy choices that caused the failure in the first place. To quote Joe Biden, “Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

    The Self-Immolation Syndrome is not going to get cured at the ballot box in California anytime in the foreseeable future.

    Voting with one's feet? Now that's a different story.

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