Dan Walters: Would California voters actually support a wealth tax on billionaires?

In a sense, California has been taxing wealth since it became a state 175 years ago.

Well into the 20th century, the state relied on taxing land and buildings which, in that agrarian period, were major forms of personal wealth. The state eventually imposed other taxes and by the 1930s, property taxes exclusively financed local services.

Today, despite the limit on property taxes imposed by 1978’s Proposition 13, levies on nearly $9 trillion in taxable real estate generate about $98 billion in revenue each year.