Ok, so I am doing my best to keep politics out of this blog but I can’t resist on this point. 

Demonizing/criminalizing an industry group (big oil) and proposing to tax them because they made TOO MUCH money goes against the fundamental tenants of capitalism and free markets.  I don’t like the price of fuel any more than the next guy and see this as a bigger issue about removing our dependency on all petroleum-based products vs. just gas.

Here’s a backgrounder on what a windfall profits tax is all about.

The government is there to ensure competitiveness and police corruption/collusion not to determine how much profit is too much.  Doing this removes all incentives to increase shareholder value and drive maximum profitability.  If we are going to begin to determine what is too much profit/wealth creation then we should apply this to all industries and individuals.  How’s that sound?

Would you like the government to tell you when you’ve made enough money or when you’ve experienced too much stock appreciation?

Capping the profits companies can make and telling the electorate that you will redistribute this “excess profit” to them is not only bad policy but should offend any critically thinking person.