Many millionaires (whether Democrat or Republican) are often consumed with guilt over their riches, and thus feel the need to fork over more and more riches as a means to assuage their subconscious guilt.
so it is with this California goof.
Shelby Steele has a great book, White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era, that speaks directly to the dangers of misplaced guilt and it's corrosive effects on society.
It's a different topic, but I think it applies here as well.