Posted on 02/09/2006 10:24:00 AM PST by sickoflibs
It's nearly impossible for the average citizen to grasp the scale of ExxonMobil Corp.'s huge profits. In the quarter ended Dec. 31, the giant company made $10.7 billion, the equivalent of more than $115 million for every one of its 92 days, nearly $5 million each hour, more than $80,000 every minute, nearly $1,350 each second.
All of us pay for the huge profits, but poor Americans living in colder regions and working people who must commute long distances are the ones whose contribution to ExxonMobil's profits are the most painful.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that home heating oil prices this year will be 23 percent higher than last year; throughout the Northern states, this means not only discomfort but real hardship, even death for some of the elderly.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where significant, voluntary "give-backs" to American society are common. The obvious alternative is some form of taxation, something we have done many times in the past when chance and misfortune have combined to produce unwarranted gains.
Last fall, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a one-year tax increase of $5 billion for the nation's largest oil companies. At the moment, however, even these tiny steps are unlikely to pass the House of Representatives. It will take an aroused citizenry to demand what should be given freely. Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, and six other senators have introduced windfall profits tax legislation. This direction would inevitably have to be at the center of a serious agenda for change as the pain continues to increase.
Gar Alperovitz, the Lionel R. Bauman professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, College Park, is author of "America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy." His e-mail is garalper@ncesa.org.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Oh you think that is something. Just remember that over half the price of gas is taxes.
We need a fuel tax cut.
On the other hand, what is the budget of the federal Department of Education, which is a massively oversized bureaucracy that probably does more harm than good to this country? I'll bet the annual budget is well over Exxon's $10.7 billion profit for the quarter. Let's shut down 80% of the activites at the federal DOE and return that to the American people as a tax cut. Then eliminate all the useless activity at HHS and return part of its budget to the people. Federal budget cutting could help the American people a lot, while increased taxation of oil company profits is inherently destructive and could easily lead to an oil shortage and $4 gasoline later in this decade. When you look at federal budget cutting, you find five billion here and five billion there and before long it adds up to real money.
How about we drop the fuel tax, drill all our own oil (we have the reserves, ten year tops from the start of building to get it up and running) and use the profits that would go back to government (like what goes on in Alaska) to fund such projects.
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