Governor 13.3% - Jerry Brown's latest California accomplishment

It's hard to believe now, but Jerry Brown once ran for President as a reformer who favored a flat tax with a 13% top federal rate. That was 1992. Nowadays in his second stint as Governor, he's running to give California alone a higher top income-tax rate.

The incredible shifting Governor recently agreed to adjust his November ballot initiative to include an even higher top tax rate. Previously he favored an increase to 12.3% from 10.3% today. But the government-unions that live off tax revenues had threatened to sponsor their own ballot measure raising the top rate even higher.

The Governor feared that divided support might doom both. So he and the unions agreed to back only one initiative with a top rate of 13.3%. The measure would also raise the state sales tax by a quarter of a percentage point to 7.5%, or more than 9% including the sales tax in some cities. Oh, and instead of lasting five years, the income-tax increase would last for seven.

All of this is said to be necessary to balance a $9.2 billion budget deficit. So what else is new? Mr. Brown expects ...

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