Brown the realist

By compromising with a teachers union, the governor hopes to ensure passage of a tax increase.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a former mayor of Oakland, appears to have adopted the late Oakland Raiders boss Al Davis’ motto when it comes to his ballot initiative to raise taxes: Just win, baby.

Trying to narrow the state’s multibilliondollar budget gap, Brown initially proposed a temporary increase in the sales tax paid by all Californians and in the income taxes paid by the highest earners. He agreed to modify his initiative this week to gain the support of a teachers union pushing a rival ballot measure, which would have permanently raised taxes on million-dollar incomes to generate more money for education and other public services. The new Brown plan would boost revenues by imposing a higher surtax on upper-income Californians and leaving it in effect for seven years, not five, while also calling for a smaller increase in sales taxes.

The changes don’t make Brown’s plan better in terms of tax policy — the new approach would make California even more reliant on the variable fortunes of the wealthy for the next few years, exacerbating the peaks and troughs in state revenues. Sooner or later, the state badly needs to overhaul its tax code rather than pressing harder on the same pellet bar.

But Brown is right about the immediate reality of the situation. Sacramento’s budget gap has persisted despite deep, painful cuts in the services the state finances. Higher tax revenues need to be part of the solution, and Republicans in the Legislature remain insurmountable obstacles to any kind of increase. As a consequence, Brown has no choice but to go to the voters, and a ballot crowded with competing income tax proposals decreases the chance of any of them passing.

That crowd thins notably with the California Federation of Teachers dropping its proposal, but a group led by civil rights attorney Molly Munger is still gathering signatures for an initiative that would temporarily raise income tax rates for most Californians to increase spending on education and preschool programs. Munger’s approach, which would impose a patchwork of constraints on how the new revenue could be spent, is a more flagrant example of the sort of ballot-box budgeting that leaves the state hamstrung. Nor would it avert as many cuts in services as Brown’s proposal.

Advocates of the Munger proposition contend that voters should be the ones deciding which proposal is best, not politicians cutting backroom deals. The programs they back won’t be helped at all, however, if the competing tax initiatives confuse voters and fragment support badly enough to cause all of them to be defeated. For the sake of avoiding yet more cuts that undermine education, public safety and other essential state services, Munger and Brown should find a way to get on the same page and just win.