Quote Originally Posted by cu260r6
When one political party takes in 80% of the donations from the oil industry it’s safe to assume Big Oil’s interests are being looked after by that party. Consider this the next time you hear one party championing more drilling and higher oil company profits: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=E01 or McCain
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...v=rss_politics

That article posted above contains several misleading
assumptions.
1.Despite the vague questions and assertions in the first two paragraphs Obama’s plan offers concrete specifics. The Windfall tax would only be levied against the top grossing oil companies and only if oil exceeded $90 per barrel thereby giving any company an incentive to keep the price low.

2.None of the revenue from the windfall tax would go to “stimulus” checks. In fact, Obama has not advocated for any future stimulus checks than the ones passed in April. Obama’s plan calls for $150 billion in revenue over the next 10 years to be directed at renewable energy research and foreign oil independence. Since the energy companies have shown no ability to develop alternative technologies themselves there is no other way to force energy independence from foreign oil fast enough than through publically funded research.

3.The $64.7 billion the article cited as taxes paid does not count the $14 billion they received in tax breaks and subsidies. How can anyone justify subsidising an industry so royally screwing those that work for a living.

4.The focus on the percentage of profit is misleading. The revenue of Exxon almost DOUBLED from the same quarter last year. Of course you're going to be taxed more when your revenue goes up so drastically.

5.The comparison to GE, tech companies, and other industries is ridiculous for one very important reason. The oil industry doubled their revenue, but created very few new jobs. Companies like GE especially expand their workforce in similar rates as their revenue expands. As I pointed out earlier, and Dion mentioned, the oil industry has a unique impact on the national security and economic security of our nation, so they are subject to increased safeguards.

The mark of a fool is to do the same thing and expect different results. Unless we change something that will have a substantial impact nothing is going to change at the pump. The same old rhetoric of trust the oil companies, they'll do the right thing, isn't working anymore.
Wow :roll: - direct from the hyper-partisan playbook.

In the order you detailed them:

1. What are the concrete specifics you allude to? What net income % is considered a windfall? How many of the "top grossing" - one? two? all of them? top 5? It's vague. Even your attempt to clarify is murky as pond water.

2. You are wrong. Your favorite site must not have updated yet - but Barack's is. Direct from Obama's site (underlines added by me):

http://my.barackobama.com/page/commu...updates/gG5klN
Senator Obama today unveiled an Emergency Economic Plan, following news of rising unemployment and a struggling economy. The proposed plan would take the excess profits of oil companies to help working families deal with energy costs in the form of new $1,000 rebate checks, and would enact a $50 billion economic stimulus package to jump-start job creation and help local communities that are struggling due to our economic downturn.
3. So the government is up by $50B. Fine. They're still up by $50B. And I agree - let's get rid of the subsidies... but let's be fair about it. Let's cut subsidies for farmers too - they're earning record $$ recently with the uptick in the price of grains, etc. No one seems to be complaining about that though - other than to erroneously blame it on the Oil companies.

4. The focus on the percentage is NOT misleading. Focusing on the flat dollar value is - which is precisely why that's the only number being reported in the media. Revenue doubling has NOTHING to do with taxes - businesses are not taxed on revenue (in fact - if you've got a basic understanding of economics you realize that businesses are NOT taxed at all - the consumer is via pass-through of costs, but that's another discussion). Focusing on the percentage illustrates that while revenues increased - so did associated costs. You want to understand the numbers a bit deeper - go look at the year on year progression of the gross profit margin - that's total production costs (no write downs or large CEO salaries included, nor is exploration included) divided by total revenues. When it stays flat - then the company is merely passing along increased costs incurred. Which is exactly what will happen with any windfall profit tax - it will add $$ at the pump.

5. This is not ridiculous. The creation of few jobs is true - but points to increased material costs as the primary driver, which is supported by the fact that production dropped. When GE or others increase revenue - typically it follows a growth in business volume (i.e. production). The reason Exxon's stock took a beating when they announced the #'s is b/c the investors understand that the outlook of lower production is not a good trend - and that the increased revenues are not the result of increased volume or efficiency and didn't translate to better returns.

The mark of a fool is someone who speaks as though he/she is an expert on a subject of which they know nothing. The mark of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results (longstanding Deming quote). You're clearly no fool, nor insane - but please, go easy on the partisan propoganda. Keep that stuff for the Dungeon. And bone up on your economics.

And one last thing. The Oil & Gas industry donated roughly $18.5M so far this year. You are correct that ~80% (76% if you'd like to be accurate) went to Republicans. Attoney's and Law firms have donated almost an order of magnitude more ($142.6M) in the same period to democrats by the same proportion (75% to dems). So we're beating up the bad oil companies for putting republicans in their pocket while the lawyers make sure the democrats are in their pocket 10x - to drive more complex laws and regulations to ensure that they continue some true windfall profits due to the increase in litigation, etc. Wonderful. Not too politically expedient to point out though - is it?