The Daily Plunge

Is the nation really stupid enough to buy this ridiculous publicity stunt that was held in the Senate today? A windfall profits tax is easily one of the dumbest political gimmicks around and it died with the Carter administration. Well, it should have died. Now the horrible idea is back again in the Congress and with Obama on the campaign trail. It’s unbelievable.

We’re not afraid, on this side, to go after Big Oil when they are not doing the right thing,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. “And we are not afraid to go after OPEC because they are a cartel that squeezes us. “We’re not afraid to do some strong tough things that will — some in the short run, some in the longer run — that will bring down the price, the all too high price, of gasoline.”

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, said the measure was needed to “wring out” speculators he blamed for driving the price of crude oil to more than $130 a barrel in recent weeks. But Senate Republicans insisted the new taxes ultimately would hurt consumers and cut American oil supply, saying Democrats simply were playing election-year politics.

How is raising tax on gas companies going to help eliminate speculators? Why wouldn’t oil companies just pass the tax on to consumers? Why doesn’t CNN’s coverage of this story mention any of the obvious questions. Is this the Democrat answer to the energy problem? Senator Schumer’s above quote is infuriating. The United States has the greatest higher education system in the world and we’re being governed by pandering idiots.
We might as well subsidize research into cloning the Tooth Fairy in hopes the extra cash will be used to bring down the cost of oil. Despite the fact that history has proven this type of tax doesn’t work, there are people out there that believe it is the answer. It is insane to expect that doing the same thing over and over again will yield a different result.