Democrats suck!
Posted on 01/19/2012 11:33:44 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Dems propose 'Reasonable Profits Board' to regulate oil company profits By Pete Kasperowicz - 01/19/12 10:20 AM ET
Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to control gas profits.
The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a "windfall profit tax" as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.
The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding "a reasonable profit." It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.
The bill would also seem to exclude industry representatives from the board, as it says members "shall have no financial interests in any of the businesses for which reasonable profits are determined by the Board."
According to the bill, a windfall tax of 50 percent would be applied when the sale of oil or gas leads to a profit of between 100 percent and 102 percent of a reasonable profit. The windfall tax would jump to 75 percent when the profit is between 102 and 105 percent of a reasonable profit, and above that, the windfall tax would be 100 percent. The bill also specifies that the oil-and-gas companies, as the seller, would have to pay this tax.
Kucinich said these tax revenues would be used to fund alternative transportation programs when oil-and-gas prices spike.
"Gas prices continue to rise, creating a hardship for the American people," he said. "At the same time, oil companies are making record profits gouging their customers. This bill would tax only the excess profits and create forward-thinking transportation alternatives."
Specifically, he said the money would be used to fund a tax credit on the purchase of fuel-efficient cars and set up a grant program for mass transit programs when oil-and-gas prices are high.
The bill does not estimate the size of these grants or the amount of money that might be collected through the tax.
Co-sponsoring the bill are five other Democrats: Reps. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Marcia Fudge (Ohio), Jim Langevin (R.I.), and Lynn Woolsey (Calif.).
Creepy....
There’s incentive for you.
So, are they going to introduce the
“anti-Dog eat dog” law?
But President Obama does have a policy answer to the question, what is your plan to address rising gas prices? He wants to raise taxes on oil companies. With all of the profits oil companies are making, Obama says, they don't need any subsidies. He labels $4 billion in tax loopholes as oil company subsidies and calls for those loopholes to be closed.
Oil companies should not be getting subsidies from the government in any event. But the dollar amount of oil profits is high because the oil companies invest such huge amounts to produce oil. As a return on investment or sales, oil profits are modest. While ExxonMobile and the other oil companies earn about 7% on sales, respected public citizens such as Google, Microsoft, and McDonald's regularly earn 20% or more.
Moreover, the fundamental truth is that the government doesn't subsidize oil companies. Oil companies subsidize the government. ExxonMobile alone pays more in income taxes than the bottom 50% of income earning citizens combined. In 2008 alone, ExxonMobile paid $116.2 billion in taxes. The effective corporate tax rate for all oil companies in 2008 was 42.3%.
************************************************************************************************************************************************* If you want the lower gas prices, lower oil prices, and lower energy prices necessary for a booming economy, you are going to have to get yourselves another President.
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/04/obamas-war-on-oil/
I’d like to see a “reasonable government thievery board” that would determine and control how much of other people’s money the lowlife politicians in Washington are allowed to steal and extort from Americans.
I don’t have the numbers readily available, but does not the govt collect more from the sale of a gallon of gas than the oil company makes in profit?
And we have a winner on the fourth message on the thread!
Then what company would even bother to sell excess oil and gas, might as well dump it into a storage tank and leave it there, in hopes the tax is recinded some day.
I've had it with the price gouging of "Big Entertainment".
Sure it makes sense, when you need something make it so companies cannot profit by giving it to you.
After all, they make “enough” and should do stuff for us for free. /s
Why can’t we get rid of liberals this way? Believe me Obama and Michelle are NOT going to do this for nothing.
How 10-289 of them...
Something reasonable proposed by “Dennis the Menace?”
Freak’n communists. Half the country better wake up.
follow by a purposal to “hug a mental midget day”
followed
Yes they do via taxes. On average an oil company makes a dime on a gallon.
Sure it makes sense, when you need something make it so companies cannot profit by giving it to you.
After all, they make “enough” and should do stuff for us for free. /s
Why can’t we get rid of liberals this way? Believe me Obama and Michelle are NOT going to do this for nothing.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Creeping communism. Will the American People wake up before it’s too late?
But it’s not Fascism, oh no.
July 28, 2010
Oil Industry Taxes: A Cash Cow For Government
by Scott A. Hodge
Special Report No. 183
Key Findings
• Data from the Energy Information Administration show that governments in the U.S. and abroad are hugely dependent upon the direct and indirect taxes paid by the largest consolidated oil companies, and that between 1981 and 2008 these tax payments exceeded corporate profits by 40 percent.
• Between 1981 and 2008, the oil industry paid more than $388 billion to the federal and state governments in corporate income taxes, but they paid almost twice that amount, $683 billion, to foreign governments.
• Profits and income tax payments mirror the price of oil. In 1998 when the price was low, the industry paid just $733 million in federal and state income taxes. In 2006, with the real price of oil averaging over $63 per barrel, the industry paid a record $37 billion in corporate income taxes.
• Excise tax collections have grown steadily. Between 1981 and 2008, $1.1 trillion was collected in excise and sales taxes on petroleum products. In 1999 governments collected $59 billion, more than twice the industry’s net profits that year.
• In severance, property and so-called windfall profit taxes, the industry paid more than $472 billion between 1981 and 2008.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/26555.html
We really need to get a handle on all of the unnecessary WH expenses that we are paying for.
Are the tires on the cars of the secret service properly inflated?
Air Force one needs to eliminate all unnecessary trips. There is so much that needs to be monitored at the public level.
Leave the private enterprises alone.
Thank you. As soon as I saw the headline, I was trying to remember what Rand called that.
Anything proposed by the ex-mayor of the mistake on the lake, I needn’t even read. What a POS. Loosen the dung beetles. JMHO of course.
Our march through the book continues. Four chapter down, 26 chapters to go.
“oil companies are making record profits gouging their customers. This bill would tax only the excess profits and create forward-thinking transportation alternatives.”
If they call setting the market price “gouging,” I’m gonna rename the Democratic party “poop,” and no one will vote for them because that’s yucky.
This has atlas shrugged written all over it.
I propose a “Reasonable Salaries Board” to regulate Congressmen’s salaries...what’s good for the goose and all that.
Not.
A reasonable profits board.
In the Stalin era they were called ministries.
They were there to ensure equal death and suffering for all.
Directive 10-289 if my recollection is correct?
That should work fine, so long as the American people don’t expect a “reasonable” supply of fuel to keep their cars running and their homes “reaonably warm”.
I propose a Reasonable Dumb Idea Board, to regulate the number of these idiotic and dangerous ideas the Democrat party can propose each year.
Absolutely stunning. Can AS get any more real?
You know who makes the biggest profits on a gallon of gas? Government. Government makes about 50 cents a gallon (it varies by state). 50 cents on zero investment figures to be an infinite profit. Government doesn’t have to explore for petroleum. It doesn’t have to extract it. It doesn’t refine it or transport it or sell it. It just has to sit back and let the profits roll in.
Soooo......... the feds want to tell a private corporation:
where to get their product.
how to get their product.
how to transport their product.
where they can create their product.
how they manufacture their product.
what they have to put in and leave out of their product.
and now they want to tell the private company how much profit they are allowed to make....
this is wrong on so many levels, i cannot even get angry....simply friggin unbelievable!!!
can someone show me where in the constitution the feds have this power?
Oh, really?
Would this be a percentage or a dollar limit?
Which operating cost number would provide the basis?
Does it apply to individual companies within the corporation or the corporation as a whole?
Let’s say the profit limit is 10%.
What does this mean for all of the non-oil companies with considerably higher profit margins?
The Feds could drop the price of a gallon of gas .50 cents tomorrow....
Bill of Attainder anyone?
No thanks, I remember my father having to leave the house at 5:00 AM to get on a line to buy gasoline. One poor fellow died of carbon monoxide poisoning waiting to fill up.
Restricting profits will lead to a reduced supply.
I propose a rope and a tree at high noon.
Maybe a congressional reasonable congressional return on investment board. Impose a 100% tax on investment income over and above say the “reasonable” rate of return the average joe expects from his/her social security contributions.
(Gawd, my head hurts.)
And we really need a "Reasonable Profits Board" to assure that the news media doesn't make too much money - they should be reporting the news as a public service! /sarc
Later, when they told her that Ellis Wyatt had vanished, leaving nothing behind but a board he had nailed to a post at the foot of the hill, when she looked at his handwriting on the board, she felt as if she had almost known that these would be the words: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."
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