"I'm pretty sure the government makes more money from the sale of a gallon of gasoline than the oil companies profit on it. Not to mention the ton of jobs the oil company created to bring the gas to the pump. All of which the government gets a piece of their wages too. Organized crime wish they had it so good."
You are oh so correct, my friend. Now put that in the perspective of the statement by our "friend" Rep. McDermott as reported in the story:
"As for oil companies rolling in profits with $60-a-barrel crude, it is ""a break they didn't earn, deserve or need,"" says Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. McDermott tried to eliminate the tax break in May but was unsuccessful. He estimates that oil companies are saving as much as $700 million in taxes a year because of it."
The only problem is that much like the direct tax on a gallon of fuel (which, as you correctly stated, exceeds the actual profit the oil companies make on a gallon of fuel), the "tax breaks" that McDermott claims the oil companies are "saving," if "fixed" by McDermott and his ilk, will simply be passed on to us as a cost of doing business. No oil company executive or Saudi sheik will lose a penny. Especially not Hugo Chavez and his phony "donation" of cheap heating oil to Joe Kennedy and Willian Delahunt, who both sing the praises of the communist dictator and Castro licker. Through this one act, Chavez bought himself a Congressman and a member of America's "royal family" (pardon me while I vomit) Just us, the little guys that the Dems so want us to believe they give a tinker's damn about.
If McDermott, Pelosi,Reid and the rest of the neosocialists want to cut the cost of fuel to the little guy, they should cut the government out of the equation or use it for the purposes they want to raise additional taxes for.
Decreased costs are reflected in market prices. With each industry the lead time varies. As you said, the only way the government can reduce cost is by reducing the government's cut. Well, there is a second way but it's a road to ruin -- price fixing. You'd think the politicians would take a lesson from from history of the railroad industry which most of the problems government meddling created in the first place. Well, the politicians did learn from history. But what they learned was that they could be the root-cause of the problem and yet cover that factoid up and instead lay the blame on the railroad industry. Which in turn they -- politicians -- could put another feather in their cap for solving a problem -- a non-existent problem that they created in the first place.