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President Vladimir Putin has signed a law introducing a windfall tax on excess profits of Russian companies, which was published on a government website on Friday. The law, passed by parliament last month, is aimed at raising 300 billion roubles and easing strain on the budget as Russia wages its war in Ukraine. Reuters reported exclusively on Friday that Russia had doubled its 2023 defence spending target to more than $100 billion, or a third of all public expenditure.

In light of Friday's decision by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the United States' credit rating to AA+, it's worth mentioning again -- as I first did in this Atlantic piece -- that Alaska recently had its bond rating raised to AAA for the first time in the state's history, largely due to fiscal improvements brought about by Sarah Palin while she was governor. The state currently enjoys a $12 billion budget surplus. I was reminded of this fact over the weekend by Ian Lazaren, the indefatigable supporter-cultist behind Conservatives4Palin.com. This is unquestionably a good thing for the people of...

The Alaska governor you never knew By Kells Hetherington Published: 1:17 PM 07/05/2011 | Updated: 1:23 PM 7/05/2011 Media outlets have shown Americans in 49 states a Sarah Palin that her fellow Alaskans would hardly recognize. And reality-adjusting her image in the run-up to 2012 could impact more declared (and potential) candidates than just the 2008 vice presidential nominee. The Palin most reporters have portrayed is almost completely aligned politically with Representative Michele Bachmann, who declared her candidacy for the GOP’s 2012 nomination last month. But Alaskans knew a Governor Palin who spread the wealth and raised taxes on big...

"Sarah Palin was presiding over a legislature in open warfare in 2007 over what would become her singular lawmaking legacy - a substantial boost in the petroleum profits tax that would force oil companies to share billions of dollars more of their profits with the state. Palin had initially proposed a modest hike, coupled with a crucial new "progressivity" component that jacked up the rate when oil prices rose above normal market levels. But her Democratic allies in the Legislature saw the chance to do more and raised it to 25%, with Palin's enthusiastic support."

Palin has stood up to the major oil companies, and has made utterly transparent the State of Alaska's dealings with them, but she is neither in their pocket nor a rabble-rouser who unfairly demonizes them. She's dealt with them like a responsible public servant, not a class warrior. Stephen Spruiell was generous and self-critical enough to link today on The Corner a comment I wrote to one of my own Palin posts in which I took issue with a post by my excellent friend Ed Morrissey (formerly of Captain's Quarters) at Hot Air. Basically, I thought Ed (and, inferentially, Mr....

There are certain laws you can break without serious repercussions, but the laws of economics are far less forgiving. And history shows that we will all pay a hefty fine if lawmakers choose to enact a "windfall" profits tax as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just proposed and Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama supports.Talk of a "windfall" profits tax turns up, like a bad penny, when politicians catch on that Americans have become frustrated by high gas prices. The concept is simple: Politicians, who are no more popular than high energy prices right now, see an easy scapegoat. So they...

One of the major criticisms of the Republicans in this Congress has been their inability to take advantage of issues that fall into their laps. We're currently seeing an example of that in the Senate, where John McCain's buddy Lindsey Graham, by organizing a "Gang of 10 on Energy", has taken away the GOP's advantage on the issue in the Senate. Thank's for energizing the Republican base, Senator. I guess you enjoy being in the minority, watching our country go down the tubes. Republicans in the House are about to face a similar problem. Nancy Pelosi, by indicating to Larry...

Unlike some of their colleagues in the Senate, House Republicans have rejected a minimal effort to compromise offered by Nancy Pelosi on energy policy.  After floating a proposal that would have allowed very limited drilling in exchange for windfall-profits taxes and depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Pelosi got the door slammed in her face by the GOP members participating in the House Oil Party this month.  Their message — follow or get out of the way: Republicans lambasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) energy plan Saturday advising her to “get out of the way” if she was not going...

Do you want to hear the truth about those evil oil companies? You know ... the evil corporations that some Democrats and most socialists will tell you should not even be allowed to make a profit? Well the state of Alaska has found a way to take care of that .... tax the hell out of them. Last year, Alaska's legislature approved a major increase on those popular-with-the-government-educated-set windfall profits on the oil industry. And guess who is profiting ... the government. When it comes down to it, the state of Alaska has received more than $10 billion this year...

WSJ - REVIEW & OUTLOOK What Is a 'Windfall' Profit? August 4, 2008; Page A12 The "windfall profits" tax is back, with Barack Obama stumping again to apply it to a handful of big oil companies. Which raises a few questions: What is a "windfall" profit anyway? How does it differ from your everyday, run of the mill profit? Is it some absolute number, a matter of return on equity or sales -- or does it merely depend on who earns it? Enquiring entrepreneurs want to know. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama's "emergency" plan, announced on Friday, doesn't offer any clarity. To...

Senator Obama continues to blame oil companies for the high price of oil as he continues to call for the imposition of a Windfall Profits Tax to redistribute oil company profits to American Workers. Yesterday we examined the cost of Obama's radical new $500 per worker Energy Rebate proposal. The cost of the proposed rebates, to be paid through a Windfall Profits Tax on oil companies, would amount to $75 billion or about 62.5% of the combined $120 Billion net profit of the big 5 in 2007. Today, let's look at how Senator Obama's Windfall Profits Tax would be collected....

Barack Obama's campaign will begin running a television ad Monday that attacks Republican John McCain's energy policies. "After one president in the pocket of big oil we can't afford another," says the ad, referring to President Bush's previous work in the oil industry. Obama hoped to emphasize energy and the economy in campaign stops this week in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, beginning with a speech Monday in Lansing, Mich. Gas prices over $4 a gallon have become a top issue in the presidential contest. Obama's spot trumpets his proposal to revive a windfall profits tax on energy companies and asserts...

America is currently facing energy challenges reminiscent of the 1970s. Unfortunately, rising gas prices have policymakers repeating the mistakes from that decade—mistakes that took a bad situation and made it worse.[1]Then, as now, good energy policy is easy to distinguish from bad energy policy: Good policy leads to more supplies of affordable energy; bad policy leads to less. Chief among the good policies is expansion of domestic oil production, and chief among the bad are windfall profits taxes, price controls, and federal subsidies and mandates for alternative energy sources. These bad ideas were tried before and backfired, and they will...

ExxonMobil and other oil companies have a responsibility to their employees and shareholders to make a profit and maintain corporate stability. Oil companies need profits so they can invest in finding and producing more oil. And the media don’t look at profits versus expenditures in context. Over the last 25 years, ExxonMobil, for one, has reported profits of $331 billion. It has invested $355 billion back into its business over the same time period, according to spokesman Gantt Walton. “We’ve invested more in the business than we’ve earned,” Walton said. “You can’t just take snapshots in time because it’s really...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday he would impose a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies as he sought political gain from Americans' pain over high gasoline prices...

How a Windfall Oil Profits Tax Would Hurt You By Elizabeth MacDonald We are witnessing a new round of stiffnecked fulminations over the need for a new windfall tax on oil profits from elected officials who know nothing about economics and the impact their legislation has on US taxpayers. A growing number of Congressmen want to enact a windfall profits tax to punish what they see are greedy gougers in the oil industry. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has piled on, too, and is now exploiting anxiety over high gas prices by pledging to enact a windfall profits tax on...

Obama says he would impose oil windfall profits tax 33 minutes ago Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Monday he would impose a windfall profits tax on U.S. oil companies as he sought political gain from Americans' pain over high gasoline prices. Launching a two-week focus on the economy after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama drew a sharp contrast between his economic policies and those of John McCain, his Republican rival in the November election. "I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for...

Obama's newest TV ad tells about Exxon making $40 billion and how he's going to institute a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. Let's consider that idea. First, taking money away from the oil companies helps me at the pump by...??? It seems to me that the windfall profits tax ends up in Washington or in some politician's freezer. I fail to see how that lowers the price I pay at the pump. More than likely that money will get sucked off into new programs that make people more dependent on the gov't...not what I want. Second, while you...

by Mark Finkelstein July 28, 2006 - 08:27 MRC's Brent Baker has noted ABC News' hyper-ventilation over Exxon's 'breathtaking' profits. This morning it was NBC's turn. As everyone knows, the way to decrease the price of a product is . . . to raise taxes on it? As contradictory as the notion might sound, it appears to be the Today show's preferred solution to $3/gallon gas. It was the news of Exxon's $10.3 billion second-quarter profit that gaveToday the opening to air its n-th iteration of the 'soaring gas prices' story. In an innovative bit of demagoguery, Today even displayed...

by Mark Finkelstein May 8, 2006 The worst possible 'solution' to the high cost of gasoline would be price controls, since they would simultaneously drive down production and drive up demand. But running a close second and third in the bad-idea sweepstakes would be a windfall-profits tax on oil companies and a cap on the amount oil companies can pay their executives. Two out of three ain't bad, so let's give GMA's Charlie Gibson an A- in his attempt to demagogue the gas-price issue this morning. His guest was the soft-spoken James Mulva, Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, the nation's...