Dennis Kucinich and a few of the usual suspects have introduced a bill (H.R.3784) to apply a “windfall profits tax” of up to 100% on all oil and gas industry profits that exceed a “Reasonable Profit.” Reasonable is undefined; three Presidential appointees (none from Congress) serving three-year terms would decide that. No member could have ”financial interests in any of the businesses for which reasonable profits are determined by the Board.”
Kucinich says the revenues would fund tax credits for the purchase of fuel-efficient cars and a grant program for mass transit riders when oil and gas prices are “unreasonable.”
So, as I say, “Thank God for Dennis Kucinich. Think about this:
As documented over and over by government and others, oil-and-gas industry profits typically run below (often far below) the profit rates of many other industries;
So if other-industry profit levels set the Board’s baseline, what would this bill do?
It would provide jobs for Presidential friends who have no pension fund, no 401(k), no IRA, no personal investments, no mutual funds, and no hope for retirement — ever.
So, thank God for Dennis Kucinich.
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Right you are; I don’t know what I was thinking.
There’s a simple one word comment for this proposal. “Socialism.”