Washington Post
Leaders Question Gasoline Prices
Hastert, Frist to Ask Bush for Probe

Congressional leaders yesterday planned to ask President Bush to order investigations into possible price gouging by oil companies as crude oil prices hit new highs on world markets and average gasoline prices in the nation’s capital blew through the $3-a-gallon mark.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) are preparing to send a letter to the president Monday asking him to direct the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department to investigate alleged price gouging and instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to issue waivers that might make it easier for oil refiners to produce adequate gasoline supplies, Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean said.

Before the Republicans betray their core principles and jump on the “windfall profit tax” bandwagon, maybe they will look at up actual profit margins of the comapnies they want to penalize?

Profit Margins (ttm):

ExxonMobil: 10.87%
ConocoPhilips: 8.33%
BP: 7.82%
Chevron: 7.60%

The GOP has lost it’s way. The economic policies they are backing are in lock step with the communist Chinese. Nice.

China slaps windfall tax on oil, gives no size

SINGAPORE, March 27 (Reuters) – China has imposed a windfall profit tax on domestic crude oil sales with immediate effect, the government’s top economic planning body said, without revealing how big the tax would be or how it would be applied.