Windfall Profit Tax Fallacy
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.
April 24, 2006 7:19 am 
Not to mention the average “profit” margin for your avg Miramax film is five to ten times that ammount. It shouldn’t matter if they were achieving 100% profits. If they were, they would have more money to invest in new exploration and production which would lower the price. The fact of the matter is that the Dems have consistently opposed domestic production which would make us less dependant upon foreign oil producers. The fact that Frist and Hastert are now joining them is a disgrace.
gregg J
[...] PunditReview Does a Takedown on Taxing Oil Companies’ “Windfall Profits” — It ought to make the big fans of the idea hesitate a little to know that the Communist Chinese government has decided to do just that. [...]