http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1139.html
Posted on 04/30/2006 9:00:09 PM PDT by kellynla
AS GAS PRICES top $3 per gallon, politicians are cashing in big — by throwing bombs at the U.S. oil industry.
As in every crisis, Washington is suffering from a predictable case of "do something" disease. Products of the ready-to-eat microwave culture, Americans want an instant solution to high energy costs, and this lends itself to grandstanding and election-year maneuvering by politicians of all stripes.
Numerous lawmakers, from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), are lining up to support a new federal windfall profits tax, with the aim of redistributing profits from "greedy" oil companies.
But lawmakers could benefit from a history lesson. The last time this country experimented with such a tax was the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980. According to a 1990 Congressional Research Service study, the tax depressed the domestic oil industry, increased foreign imports and raised only a tiny fraction of the revenue forecasted. It stunted domestic production of oil by 3% to 6% and created a surge in foreign imports, from 8% to 16%.
Politicians calling oil companies "greedy" is more than a little ironic. Tax Foundation studies have shown that state and federal treasuries profit handsomely from oil industry sales. The average American motorist pays taxes of 46 cents a gallon on gasoline, of which 18.4 cents a gallon goes to the federal government. States and localities pocket the rest.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1139.html
I was listening to Durbin the other day. He said the oil companies have too big of profits and it's high time some of that goes back to the people and the gov't. Back to? He acts like it was the gov't in the first place. G-d save us from fools.
Besides, such games are only playable with US companies. US oil production peaked in 1972. US oil just isn't relevant anymore.
Global peak oil is now.
Neal Cavuta held Durbin's feet to the fire on this the other day and made him look like a fool. Durbin wouldn't answer Cavuto's question of the 9 cent a gallon profit vs the almost 50 cents in taxes.
Who's "Neal Cavuta"?
And why are we quoting and commenting on anything from the notorious "Left Angeles Times"?
It's even worse than the NYT in its perpetuation of Hate-America diatribe.
This whole business is a sham for criticising our government in a time of war and blaming our Administration for every ill under the sun from diaper rash to hang nails.
That eight cents per gallon is the price we pay to have oil and gasoline readily available whenever we need it. Take it away from the producers and it would be the most expensive eight cents consumers ever "got back" from anyone.
Simply put, Cavuto's the host of the number 1 business show on TV.
j
With all the success of the day off illegal immigrant protests, perhaps the oil companies should have a day off without gasoline?
It's not 46 cents on average, that's low. It's more like 60-70 cents with all the taxes from the well head to the pump.
Precisely.
We would "save" 8 cents/gallon...but there wouldn't be any gas.
God save us all from the U.S. Congress!
Because when they're right, they're right.
Be certain to alert us to the day something "right" comes out of the failed LATimes.
Everything they do is tainted and twisted in strange Left-wing ways. It's amazing and surprising that any reasonable rational adult would even suggest that they are in some even remote way a credible source of balanced news. (No one really reads this paper anymore.) Are you perhaps pulling a "gag"?
Did you even bother to actually read the entire piece and recognize who the author of the piece is?
if not, I suggest you do so before you make an even bigger arse out of yourself by commenting any further. LMAO
Bill O'Reilly was saying some totally moronic things about this topic too, in order to curry favor with his audience and pump up his "populist" image -- he was grasping for any excuse to bash the oil companies for "obscene profits" and how they should slash their prices to help out "the common man", blah blah blah.
One of his stupidest comments had to do with how he kept harping on his claim that "oil supplies are at an all time high, so don't give me any of the supply and demand crap to excuse the high prices". Hey, Bill -- "supply and demand" is about the balance between supply, AND DEMAND. You can't just look at "supply" in isolation, you big idiot...
Sure, if the supply was at an all time high and demand had remained at, say, 1985 levels, they'd almost be giving the gas away. But guess what? While "supplies" are high, SO IS DEMAND -- the 2006 *demand* for petroleum is ALSO at an all time high. The US is using up the petroleum as fast as it's getting it, and 2006 petroleum demand is up 300,000 barrels per DAY from 2005.
Bill O'Reilly is a big fat idiot.
For tons of figures on US energy supply and demand, see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html.
Well, there's *this* piece, for example.
Everything they do is tainted and twisted in strange Left-wing ways. It's amazing and surprising that any reasonable rational adult would even suggest that they are in some even remote way a credible source of balanced news. (No one really reads this paper anymore.) Are you perhaps pulling a "gag"?
Do you have a particular objection to anything in the article, or did you not even bother to read it?
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