Rep. Kanjorski's Unreasonable, Unconscionably Ridiculous Idea 29 comments
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"While Hillary Clinton may have failed ECON 101 along with John McCain, it appears as if Rep. Paul Kanjorski [D-PA] may have been enrolled in Marxism 450 at the time," according to The Tax Foundation. Reason? Exhibit A: Kanjorski's House Resolution 5800, the "Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008," which would:
- Tax the oil industries’ "windfall profits."
- Set up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to determine when the oil companies’ profits are in excess, and then tax them on those windfall profits.
- As oil and gas companies’ windfall profits increase, so would the tax rate for those companies.
In this news article, Kanjorski said his legislation will encourage oil companies to lower prices to prevent them from receiving higher tax rates.
A few Questions/Comments:
1. Oil companies don't set oil and gas prices, global market forces do. The fact that oil and gas prices change daily demonstrates very clearly that oil companies are at the mercy of market forces of supply and demand.
2. If you tax something [oil], you get less of it. If you get less of something [oil], prices go up, not down.
3. How does Rep. Kanjorski know what "reasonable profits" are? He might start by having Congress investigate the 57 industries listed above (click to enlarge, data available here) that already have higher profits than the average 9.6% profit margin of the "Major Integrated Oil and Gas Industry" (which includes Exxon (XOM), Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), BP (BP), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A), etc.).
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Nothing Congress will or can do in the area of windfall profits taxes or similar efforts will be helpful in terms of what the US really needs: an acknowledgement that peak oil is here and a comprehensive energy policy that includes (among other things) encouragement of the design, production, and support infrastructure for an alternative(s) to the internal combustion gasoline powered automobile. here is a good start at an energy policy:
seekingalpha.com/artic...
The US will pay a heavy price if our elected leaders continue their shortsighted policies simply to get votes and get reelected. Let their be no doubt about it, peak oil is THE biggest threat to America national security. Yet, the government, the media, and US citizenry in general is in complete denial. Very scary....
Stop driving your vehicle.
and move to Venezuela.
And make sure all your buddies do to.
yourfilled@yahoo.com
How retarded is this gas tax moratorium for the summer? McCain says it will help the poor the most becuase they drive older cars and drive more. What? Hmm, let me see, if we lower gas prices these users are going to consumer more than they would right now, driving demand up. Economics 101 says if demand goes up something else does as well. What could that be? Maybe prices?
Plus a tax cut will induce fewer people to switch cars to more fuel efficient vehicles.
As for windfall taxes, what idiocy. Only complete morons don't understand these simple concepts. We want to tax Exxon because they are big, not extremely profitable. Google has windfall profits, 50%.
How funny, Obama is actually right on this one. And lets be serious, there is a guy who has had great schooling and I would put major money on the fact that in all his years at Ivy League universities the man never took an economics course. I can't even tell you how many of these progressive/socialist/... I met in college and law school that never even knew there was an economics department in these schools.
as for obama being right on this...i haven't heard one thing that he's been right on yet. if any candidate is the uber-socialist it is him - he's all about wealth redistribution. and you can bet that isn't just in regards to personal wealth, he'll be all over that for corps too.
less incentive to go to hybrid vehicles? hmmm...if those enviro-whackos are only going there when its profitable for them to do so...how sincere are they? and then why should *i* pay more for a more efficient vehicle if they won't? let's call on Al "I own 5 houses" Gore to sell at least 3 of them and reduce *his* footprint before we have to start worrying about how to get to work! funny how their ideologies are always paid for on the backs of the poor and middle class!!
fitzman - i don't know about peak oil...or should i say...i'm not convinced. we're simply not allowed to produce here. we ought to be operating in anwar...not to mention the already-approved Thompson shelf.
There is nothing you can do to oil. If the excess profits were taxed where would our EXCESS MONIES go? Not back to us. Congress would up their perks and the oil companies would charge us more because they are making less.
Must be an election year but we put them in congress!!!
Instead of bailing out investment banks, perhaps Washington can heavily subsidize energy creation using Treasuries. This would create a competing product, increase investment back into America and create millions of jobs. Eventually, exporting the raw materials would create trillions in wealth as lower energy costs allow for a ton more exporting of agriculture and metals. The Democrats are the fools of the hill. What have they done in the last two years? Investigate steroid use in baseball and craft 'we hate Bush' legislation. Great. Actually, the President has been the only one calling from the rooftops that we need energy independence but one man alone cannot legislate our government.