From Bloomberg via yahoo news: Biden Ally Floats 21% Surtax on Oil Profits to Blunt Inflation
“The proposal I’m developing would help reverse perverse incentives to price gouge, by doubling the corporate tax rate on companies’ excess profits, eliminating egregious buybacks and reducing accounting tricks,” [Senator Ron] Wyden said about the proposal he plans to introduce in the coming weeks. “By contrast, companies that provide relief to consumers by either reducing prices or investing in new supply would not be affected.”
Inflation isn’t caused by any policy of Joe or the Democrats, nope, it is those evil nasty capitalist oil companies being greedy.
If greed was the driving force, wouldn’t they oil companies have raised their prices long ago to maximize their profits? It would be much easier to sell $2.99/gal gas to public than $5.25/gal.
To quote somebody wiser than me: The beatings will continue until moral improves
So to fix inflation and make prices go down, he’s going to make people pay more for their gas?? Is he stupid enough to think that companies don’t get their tax payments from all their sales, and if taxes go up prices go up?
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In a way, that’s what Treasury Secretary Janet (Smellin’) Yellen was saying recently. People are creating too much demand for the supply (of everything) so everyone should just stop buying stuff and that will drive the price down. You know, like food. Baby formula. Gas to get to work. Frivolous crap like that.
Jimmy Carter tried this back in the 70’s and oil production went down. Now we have Biden demanding that the oil refiners explain why they aren’t producing more. Gee, maybe it’s because they know they are going to get punished no matter what they do? I swear to God this is the most clueless administration I’ve ever seen.
There’s nothing clueless about what demoncrats and rinos are doing to destroy this country, they know what they’re doing, it was planned and is working just fine. They think.
No one, not even libsucktards are that f’n stupid.
One word about supply. Keystone.
So, ya gotcha some permits, and leases, and all that bullshit. Once the spotlight is off, all that gets canceled. Lucy Van Pelt, as energy policy.
Outstanding! What could go wrong?
The perpetrator of this crazy proposal would be better described as a Sanders ally — he is another one of the extreme left socialists infesting Congress these days.
Once again, leftist are children. Toddlers really.
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They think they can screw around with one piece of a massively interconnected system and no other part of the system will be affected at all.
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The US economy is a massive interconnected system. It is impossible to change one part of it without the entire thing changing in some way. Raising taxes on one industry will impact every other industry. Especially if it is the energy and fuel sector. Can you name a single business or product that will not increase prices if the cost of fuel goes up? What magic industry has no reliance on fuel?
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Yet… here they are. Looking at the simple symptom (fuel costs too much), and deciding the simplest cause is the real reason. (Gas companies want to make more money). So, to fix that cause, they will increase taxes.
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And, with zero forethought at all.
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Let’s see. Pretend you are the CEO of Exxon/Mobil. You get the memo, the Feds are cranking up the taxes to 21%. What do you do?
I would reach over to the big knob/valve right next to my desk and close it a half, maybe 3/4 turn. Reduce available supply, drive prices up higher, and in addition, pass the cost of the tax to the consumer. Net result is more profit, and the consumer gets screwed even more.
The toddler mindset is that if one part gets penalized, only that part gets penalized. For toddlers it makes sense; one kid acts out and gets spanked or corner time, it stops there — nobody else gets spanked or corner time.
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But that only happens when dealing with fully independent entities. The U.S. economy is not like that.
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Democrats and RINOs (and some Republicans) think that if they financially penalize one industry, it will stop there — that industry’s businesses will just eat the extra cost. That’s not how this works, doubly so when the penalized industry is energy or fuel. Absent an industry-killing centralized price-fixing scheme (industry-killing because at some point, the price will be artificially fixed somewhere below the cost of production), the costs WILL be passed to customers/consumers.
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Like it or not, every price in the U.S. economy is dependent on the cost of energy and/or fuel. Every. Single. One. Either the Democrats and RINOs are too simple-minded to understand that, or they understand it just fine and will do this anyway. I’m not sure which is worse.
“But that only happens when dealing with fully independent entities. The U.S. economy is not like that.”
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I am going to use that. Perfectly stated.
Sadly, that’s “my” Senator right there. (I’ve voted against him for years.) He’s not stupid; he knows the U.S. economy is interconnected and interrelated, and therefore knows that doubling the taxes on the fuel industry will cause all prices to skyrocket.
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But he’s also just the kind of ideologue that would do it anyway. Because Social Justice, and “profit is violence.” Or something.