“Nothing is easier, or more emotionally satisfying, than blaming high prices on those who charge them, rather than on those who cause them.” –Thomas Sowell
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CBS News: House Approves New Taxes On Big Oil.
(AP) The House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies Wednesday [Feb. 27] as Democrats cited record oil prices and rising gasoline costs in a time of economic troubles.
The money collected over 10 years would provide tax breaks for wind, solar and other alternative energy sources and for energy conservation. The legislation, approved 236-182, would cost the five largest oil companies an average of $1.8 billion a year over that period, according an analysis by the House Ways and Means Committee. Those companies earned $123 billion last year.
Senate Democratic leaders said they would put the bill on a fast track and try to avoid a Republican filibuster. The White House said the bill unfairly takes aim at the oil industry. President Bush is expected to veto the legislation if it passes Congress.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., noted it was two years ago, when oil cost $55 a barrel, when Bush said oil companies need no government subsidies to pursue more oil or gas.
“With the price of oil hovering around $100 do we really believe this incentive is justified?” asked Hoyer. “Do these companies need taxpayer subsidies to look for new product? They don’t need any incentive.”
Republicans said the measure unfairly targeted a single industry.
“It punishes the oil and gas industry. This is wrongheaded. It will result in higher prices at the gasoline pump. It’s spiteful and wrong,” said Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La.
Thomas Sowell from April 2006: Oily Politicians.
Is it rocket science that, when oil prices hit new highs, gasoline prices also hit new highs? Do you think the price of wheat could double without the price of bread going up? Would we have politicians running around spouting off about “gouging” by Big Wheat?
No matter how big American oil companies are, there are other oil companies around the world and the price of oil is determined in international markets. As for investigating Big Oil, that has been done time and again already, with nothing to show for it.
Is it rocket science that, when huge countries like India and China have rapidly growing economies, their demand for oil goes up by leaps and bounds? Is it rocket science that, when demand shoots up but supply doesn’t go up as much, prices rise?
Prices are a symptom of an underlying reality. Politicians can seize on the symptom and even pass laws dealing with it, without changing the underlying reality.
Prices are like a thermometer reading. When someone has a fever, it is not going to do any good to put the thermometer in ice water to bring down the reading. If you think the fever is gone, it may not be long before the patient is gone, if you don’t do something about what is causing the fever.
Ironically, the people who are making the most noise about the high price of gasoline are the very people who have for years blocked every attempt to increase our own oil supply. They have opposed drilling for oil off the Atlantic coast, off the Pacific coast, or in Alaska. They have prevented the building of any new oil refineries anywhere for decades.
They have fought against the building of hydroelectric dams or nuclear power plants to generate electricity without the use of oil. They love to talk about their own pet “alternative energy sources,” without the slightest attention to what these would cost in terms of money, jobs, or our national standard of living.
Even when one of their pet “alternative energy sources” — windmills — is proposed to be built near them, suddenly it is not right to spoil their view.
Politicians have indulged these spoiled brats for generations. Now, when the chickens come home to roost, they are screaming about high prices and Big Oil. That is world class chutzpa.
Steve Forbes: Congress Punishes American Oil.
Reuters: Not A Lot Bush Can Do On Oil Prices
Next Energy News: North Dakota’s “super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field.”