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Democrats and the windfall profits tax
Jack Ward
What is a "windfall" profit anyway? I would define a windfall profit as profit without any meaningful effort. But Liberals/Socialists have a different definition. They seem to believe any profit above some arbitrary amount is fair game for a windfall profit tax. But profits are good. The profits from companies employ thousands of employees, provide needed products, pay billions in taxes and provide a stable income for investors.
The Left likes to single out segments of U.S. economy to attack. These attacks include ‘big drug’, ‘big agricultural’, and now ‘big oil’. By adding the adjective ‘big’ the Left is trying to demonize those sectors of the economy. How come big government is good and big industry is bad? Simple — the Leftwing politicians can control government but until they can totally control these segments of the economy they are bad.
So these Leftwing politicians demonize and attempt to penalize these companies for making a profit. In a free market society profits are good, only in Socialist/Communist controlled societies are profits demonized. But as we slid closer to a Socialist state we will continue to hear profits demonized.
There is a blind hatred of profits
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL.) the second-ranking Senate Democrat stated, that “The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy.” Since the oil and gas industry average profit is 8.3 percent, one wonders what Senator Durbin thinks is a reasonable profit. Representative Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) introduced a windfall profits tax as part of what he called the “Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008.” Governor Rendell (D-PA) complained about ExxonMobil's profits and for not paying their ‘fair share.’
But some of the Leftists have gone ever further. Leftwing kook Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) said, “…This liberal will be about socializing …uh, um… “Would be about, basically taking over, and the government running all of your companies.” “I can see that this congresswoman is going to favor nationalizing the oil companies, and making sure the prices go down.” And just to show that all this Socialist insanity doesn’t reside on the West Coast, Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) added, “We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets into the market.”
Senator Obama (D-IL) introduced a plan to tax oil company profits to pay for ‘stimulus’ checks of $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals. This ‘redistribution of wealth’ plan is a little more than a thinly veil bribe to attract votes. In 2004, Senator Hillary Clinton, (D-NY) didn’t single out ‘big oil’ for increase taxes. She said, “We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
In 2006, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100 percent rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class”. If the rational from any of these quotes seems familiar you are correct. Karl Marx, the father of Communism said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Obviously these Democrats have confused the U.S. Constitution with the Communist Manifesto. These politicians have embraced the philosophy of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Karl Marx. About 93 percent of the world's oil reserves are controlled, directly or indirectly, by governments. The U.S. oil companies are small compared to these government own oil companies. Many sectors of the U.S. economy return a higher profit margin than the oil and gas industry. Why are the Liberals singling out is this industry for a punitive tax?
Maybe the thought of nationalizing the oil and gas industry isn’t isolated to the goofy Lefties like Waters and Hinchey. Before they think about nationalizing the oil and gas industry we should understand who owns these companies? Oil companies are not owned by a greed individual.
These companies are owned by stockholders. Only about 1.5 percent of the stockholders are oil company executives. The rest of the stocks are owned by average Americans that have invested money in their mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and individual accounts the stock market. These investors depend on dividends and growth for their retirements. A punitive tax on the oil industry will hurt millions of U.S. families.
Jack Ward can be found at
OpinionEditorials.com.
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 18 August 2008