Polls from the PPIC are typically pretty accurate, so I have no reason to doubt the results of a recent one showing that a majority of Californnians still think government can be cut substantially without a reduction in services. It's hard to fathom; as Brian at Calitics notes,Read more »

Mayor Ed Lee talked to the Examiner about his plans for the next year, and it's a lot of the usual political crap: I'm going to create jobs, I'm going to bring people together and promote civility, ho hum. But he did mention, briefly, the need to change the city's business tax, and here's how he put it:Read more »

Every political consultant knows that words like "together" and "unite" play well with voters. That's why you hear them so much on the campaign trail, from races for local office to presidential campaigns. Remember Obama's signature speech, with his signature line?Read more »

This is perfect: The Courage Campaign is running an ad encouraging Kim Kardashian -- who made $12 million last year for pretty much nothing except being Kim Kardashian -- to endorse the millionaire-tax ballot initiative. The point is that Kim's income is about 240 times as much as the income for the median California family -- and she pays only 1 percent more in taxes.Read more »

John Burton, former member of Congress, the state Assembly and the state Senate and now the chair of the state Democratic Party, has represented PG&E and real-estate developers and helped build a political machine that stifled local politics for years. But I have to say: The guy is a great interview. Deep down, he really thinks like the 99 percent and every other word out of his mouth is "fuck."

Oh, and he's always an example of sartorial splendor. Everyone in Sacramento politics wears fancy suits; John dresses like he just came from the Occupy campground. On a good day.Read more »

Mayor Ed Lee, a big promoter of the Twitter tax break, won't support a tax break aimed at encouraging businesses to hire ex-offenders.Read more »

There seem to be more and more millionaires coming out of the nicely paneled woodwork to tell us that they should pay higher taxes.  I heard one of these folks on NPR yesterday and she was talking about what made her happy in life. Read more »

Chronicle Washington columnist Carolyn Lochhead doesn't typically show her political beliefs in such a clear and direct way, but her attack on the Obama tax plan is just ... bizarre. Check it out:

Rather than pursue long-run tax and entitlement reform, the new Obama plan, his sixth by some counts, litters up the tax code even more and does nothing significant on debt drivers Medicare and Medicaid.Read more »

Everyone knows I'm a fan of taxing the rich and that I think most of the economic problems in our country have their roots in the growing inequality of the past few decades, so it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed the Cruickshank piece on Calitics. He's got exactly the right idea: Tax reform that benefits the wealthy (or, in fact, tax reform that doesn't force the wealthy to pay more) isn't tax reform at all.Read more »

With no Republicans willing at this point to go along with the governor's June election plans, Jerry Brown has quite the problem on his hands. There never really was a Plan B. And now he's got to find one, fast. He's already made the cuts, and they're awful. He's not going to get his own party to go along with much more. But it's legally dubious whether he can put taxes on a special election ballot without any Republican support, and he clearly doesn't want to.Read more »