RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – 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 their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills,” the Illinois senator said.
Obama charged that McCain’s support for extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts means he is in favor of $2 trillion in corporate tax breaks, including $1.2 billion for Exxon Mobil Corp.
“If John McCain’s policies were implemented, they would add $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. That isn’t fiscal conservatism, that’s what George Bush has done over the last eight years,” Obama said.
Recently on Money.com the Shell CEO said this: “If our profits are taxed, that means we’ll have less capital to invest in new production” and it could raise gas prices.
In that same Article from Money.com it mentions how over a period of 3 years (2003-2006) oil companies spent LESS on oil exploration. The reasons are pretty clear. Its not cheap to drill in deep ocean. Not to mention that the easy oil is restricted heavily here in the US.
Lets go back to this tax thing. Because it seems like Democrats solutions for everything is to institute a tax on everything. It doesn’t matter what it is. The solution is to tax the crap out of it, have more money to spend and well, spend it.
Someone needs to have the answer on this. Maybe someday Obama will.
Please explain to me what is a ‘Windfall profits tax’?
What will be the level that determines a ‘Windfall’?
What is the percentage of this out of the blue tax?
Will this tax be assessed only to Oil companies?
Why no Google with is BILLIONS for really doing nothing. They sell clicks on a search engine. They don’t really MAKE anything. Its the internet its already there, they just make it so you can search easier. How about Visa, will you windfall profit tax them too? Or farmers that have seen a spike in their earnings from global food prices doubling and tripling.
Or is this another one of those, lets say some crap to make voters vote for me, but they mean nothing speeches.
What is this Democratic tendency to “solve” what they perceive as problems with taxes? The oil companies make a lot of money. Duh. Why does Obama feel the need to punish them for making money? I’m not a big fan of what’s going on with energy prices and their impact on the economy in general but, like most hypotheses, the basic assumptions have the biggest weaknesses. Of all the things that Obama could talk about for the gov to do in providing a sound energy policy for the country, he panders to the un- and underinformed in our society who feel that someone needs to be punished for their lack of cheap gas. Never was some adult supervision needed in DC and it sure isn’t looking like we are going to get any. Grow up Bar. End of rant.
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