THE MYTH of the California Renaissance. “The California Renaissance myth rests primarily on the idea that the 2012 income-tax increase, which raised the top marginal rate for the state’s highest earners to 13.3 percent, averted fiscal catastrophe. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projects a surplus of about $5 billion, which seems like good news. Enjoying the good news requires looking away from the state’s ‘wall of debt,’ which Brown—to his credit—often mentions in speeches. But Brown’s wall consists only of the $24.9 billion the legislature ‘borrowed’ from education and other special funds to balance the state’s byzantine budget over the past several years. The governor himself ignores the much larger wall of debt: between $330 and $600 billion in unfunded public pensions, health care, and bonds.”