For California the choice is blunt and simple: tax the rich more or close down education. What’s worrying is the rich are winning

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Sometimes the choices with regard to tax and spend are stark. As the FT has reported this week:

Jerry Brown, California's governor, has warned that the wealthiest US state will have to close schools for up to an extra three weeks if voters do not back temporary tax increases on the rich.

A ballot in next month's US election will ask Californians to support a tax rise of 3 per cent on the wealthiest 1 per cent in the state.

Recent polls have shown a drop in support for Mr Brown's plan, which would trigger billions of dollars in cuts to education if it fails.

It's a staggering scenario: that people are asked to choose between the rich getting richer and children getting an education. And yet that is where we've got to.

I guess the real question is not the micro one of the right and wrong of this but the macro one, which is can any society really survive when its value system has been so corroded that such questions are even asked?


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