As California goes …

Here’s some good news:

A new poll shows 60 percent of California voters, weary of state spending cuts and unsettled by the prospect of more, are ready to support Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to raise taxes.

The Public Policy Institute of California poll, released Monday, is the first public measure of voter opinion about Brown’s tax initiative since he announced it this month.

Brown plans to ask voters in November 2012 to temporarily increase the state sales tax and to impose higher income taxes on California’s highest-earners, raising $7 billion annually for five years.

The poll comes amid deep pessimism about the economy and concern about the state budget. More than 80 percent of likely voters think the budget situation is a big problem, and more than two thirds of likely voters predict bad times financially in the year ahead.

“People are beginning to feel the impacts of state reductions in spending at the local level,” poll director Mark Baldassare said, “and people are concerned about what might come about next.”

Yeah. There’s a sense that the next step would have to be Mad Max.

Perhaps most of us have finally realized that there are things the government provides that are worth paying for. Certainly, the California inspired anti-tax zealotry that’s governed us for the past 30 years hasn’t been working out so well lately.

Of course, John and Ken, the radio hosts who really run this state, haven’t begun their campaign yet so it’s hard to know how it’s going to turn out. But this does indicate at least a modicum of sanity among my fellow Californians at the moment. It’s a good sign.

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