Tom Steyer is running for governor on a promise to close what he calls the "Trump Tax Loophole" in Prop 13 and raise $20 billion a year—but the law dates to 1978, Jerry Brown signed it, and California's own fiscal analysts put the real number closer to $8-12 billion. Meanwhile, the broader tax fight is reshaping California politics in real time: a union-backed billionaire wealth tax has reportedly triggered an exodus of 48 billionaires and $1.1 trillion in wealth before it's even passed, with Google's founders and Zuckerberg among those who have already left. With Gavin Newsom warning the wealth tax will backfire, a $18 billion structural deficit persisting despite record revenues, and a new UC Berkeley study showing cities are taxing affordable housing into oblivion, California is facing compounding fiscal crises that no single ballot measure can fix.
California's most powerful environmental justice group thinks your right to own a home is a colonial relic. They're killing housing to prove it.