Proposition 87

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on, but in my first real perusal of BBC News in about two months, I saw an article that I had to post immediately. Apparently Californians will be voting on another petroleum tax. The article says that Proposition 87 is:

aimed at encouraging the development of alternative energy forms that are currently unreliable, inefficient, and in some cases purely fictional

supported by former President Clinton, Julia Roberts, Richard Branson, and all sorts of other limousine liberals who won't feel the effects of the legislation they're pushing

California already has the highest fuel prices I've ever seen in the United States. I've been through four states in the last two weeks, and California has consistently had the highest prices at the pump. Why? Because California already taxes petroleum to death. Higher fuel taxes aren't the way to encourage research into alternative energy sources - it will do precisely the opposite by driving entrepeneurs and research companies away from California.

Hopefully California voters will understand that, and shoot it down. This is bad news for all concerned, even if folks like former President Clinton (Arkansan, not Californian) and Richard Branson (British, not even American) are too insulated to understand that.

More to come this weekend, and in the following couple of weeks.