Gov. Jerry Brown believes passage of his initiative to raise taxes has national implications, with California at the start of a broader movement to increase taxes on the rich.
"Revenue means taxes, and certainly those who have been blessed the most, who have disproportionately extracted, by whatever skill, more and more from the national wealth, they're going to have to share more of that," Brown said in a taped interview on CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley on Sunday.
Brown's remarks follow passage last week of Proposition 30, his initiative to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners. Brown was governor before when the state passed its landmark tax-limiting measure, Proposition 13, in 1978.
"California was the start of the tax-cut sweep," Crowley said. "Do you think California's the start of a tax-increase sweep?"
"Yeah, I do," Brown said. "I was here in 1978, when (Proposition 13 backer) Howard Jarvis beat the entire establishment, Republican and Democrat, because the property taxes had just gotten out of control. Now the cutting, the cutting and the deficits are out of control. Our financial health, our credibility … as a nation that can govern itself, is on the chopping block."
CAPITOL WATCH
With thousands of votes still to count, his election is far from confirmed. But Democrat Ami Bera will join other newbies today in Washington for congressional orientation week. Other Californians include several state lawmakers who got promoted, including Democrats Juan Vargas and Jared Huffman and the GOP's Doug LaMalfa and Paul Cook.
WORTH REPEATING
"We didn't have that kind of corporate support during Prop. 8. … It would be different next time here."
KATE KENDALL, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, telling the San Francisco Chronicle that financial support from Amazon and Microsoft aided the successful Washington state campaign to legalize same-sex marriage
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