How Palo Alto taxpayers are funding California

California scooped up just under $1 billion from nearly 9,000 tax returns filed in 94301 (Palo Alto, home of Stanford and the "birthplace of Silicon Valley") in 2016 — more revenue than from any other ZIP Code in California, the L.A. Times' Melanie Mason reports.

Why it matters: As Democrat Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox campaign for governor, taxes paid "in Palo Alto’s 94301 and a handful of other affluent ZIP Codes ... will determine whether promises to build more houses, overhaul healthcare or invest in schools can actually be kept. ... Economists and politicians have long said that California’s volatile revenue base leaves the state at risk for a painful budgetary reckoning when the economy slumps."