Will California Steal From the Rich to, uh, Buy Oil Companies?

Matt Welch | August 6, 2008

First the good news: This proposed California initiative probably wouldn't make the ballot until 2010, hopefully wouldn't pass, and even if it does I presume courts would overturn some or all of it.

The bad news: The Golden State's circular drain of a political culture is producing awful ideas like a 55% estate-seizure tax on those who own $20 million in assets, to be spent on purchasing a 30%-51% stake in ExxonMobil, Chevron, General Motors, Ford, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citigroup. I shit you not.

The whole PDF file of the proposed ballot initiative is worth a read, particularly the gloriously Marxist Section 2. Thanks to the L.A. Times' Robert Greene for continuing to trawl through the zanjas of Californian democracy.