Jerry Brown fancies himself a futurist, exhorting us to act now to ensure a better tomorrow – with a bullet train and a more dependable water system his prime examples.

Their merits notwithstanding, making decisions with long-term benefits is precisely what politicians should – but rarely – do.

One wonders, however, how Brown squares his self-appointed role as progressive pathfinder with his regressive and potentially disastrous approach to the state’s chronic gap between revenue and spending.

via Dan Walters: The dark side of Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax plan.