When California Governor Jerry Brown addressed the state chamber of commerce just before Memorial Day to gain support to raise taxes, he seemed to revel in admitting he was stuck in a box. This was precisely the dilemma that existentialist heroes relish: at a time when the word taxes had become dirty, he was more or less leveraging his political future, and the state’s, on a measure to broadly raise revenues. This seemed like the only way out for a government that was running up massive deficits while firing teachers, shuttering libraries, and cutting back support for the poor. But Brown ... Read More
