Big Government: "Guaranteed jobs" is fast becoming the latest rallying cry for Democrats. And a new poll finds that 46% of Americans approve of it. Don't read too much into that poll result.
Last week, we noted that a liberal policy group urged Democrats at a leadership meeting to adopt "guaranteed jobs" as a pillar of their economic plan. In short order, Bernie Sanders said he would soon unveil his plan to achieve that. Under it, anyone who "wants or needs" a job but couldn't find one on their own would be guaranteed a government job paying $15 an hour and generous benefits.
Other prominent Democrats have latched on to this plan, including those with presidential ambitions like Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker.
Maybe they are on to something? When Rasmussen asked about the idea in its latest poll, it found that 46% favor it.
The idea of government-guaranteed jobs isn't exactly new. The Senate proposed such a guarantee in 1977. The far-left Nation magazine resurrected it in 2014, saying the country could "easily afford" to guarantee every American a job. That same year, the Huffington Post ran a poll and found that 47% favored the idea — with 22% strongly favoring it.
The only thing lacking here — besides common sense — is context.
Like, say, what would it cost those with actual jobs to support millions of guaranteed-for-life make-work jobs?
The Democrats Socialist Playbook
Big Government: If you want an indication of how far out into left field the Democratic party has moved, look no further than the briefing book distributed at a Democratic confab in Atlanta last week. One of the ideas: a guaranteed job, courtesy of the government.
Attendees at the closed-to-the-press "Democracy Alliance" conference each received copies of a 187-page briefing book titled "Everyone's Economy," according to the Washington Free Beacon. It's published by liberal think tank Demos, among whose founding board members was then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama.
The book contains an enormous laundry list of far-left policies: a $1.4 trillion a year single-payer health care plan, $2 trillion in spending on infrastructure, a $15 minimum wage, a raft of new mandatory worker benefits, amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants, repeal of most of the Trump tax cuts, increases in Social Security and welfare benefits, free college, student loan forgiveness, a ban on fracking, a $35/ton carbon tax, subsidized day care, etc.
If you think this is the wish list of a fringe-left group, think again. Most of the proposals in the briefing book are based on legislation already introduced by Democrats, or policies championed by party leaders and presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
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