Wash Post's Will echoed right-wing attacks on Clinton's proposal to tax oil profits
In his April 5 Washington Post column, George Will wrote that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) February 1 speech at the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) 2007 Winter Meeting "reveals her confiscatory itch," citing her proposal "to take" the oil industry's record profits and " 'put them into a Strategic Energy Fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy ... that will begin to actually move us towards the direction of [energy] independence.' " Will continued: "Her clunky 'toward the direction of' suggests that she actually knows that independence is as chimerical a goal as Soviet grain production goals were."
Will's references to "Soviet grain production goals" and Clinton's purported "confiscatory itch" echo previous attacks by conservatives regarding Clinton's comments at the DNC Winter Meeting. As Media Matters for America previously noted, a February 21 guest commentary (subscription required) for the website InsightMag.com claimed that Clinton's comments "finally show[ed] her true color ... red as in Lenin. ... Red as in if you are successful I will confiscate your property and, because I know how to utilize it better than you do, society will be better off. Red as in communism."
Media Matters also noted that on the February 2 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, chief political correspondent Carl Cameron said that Clinton's "pledge to take oil company profits and put them into an energy fund" is "an idea not likely to go over well with capitalists." Cameron's comment was cited in a Republican National Committee "research briefing" on Clinton under a section headlined, "Hillary Proposed Seizing American Oil Industry Profits."
Prior to her February 1 remarks, Clinton, in a May 23, 2006, speech at the National Press Club, unveiled a plan that she said would "reduc[e] our dependence on foreign oil by at least 50 percent by 2025." A press release accompanying her speech stated that her proposal provides for levying a "temporary fee" upon oil company "profits that exceed a 2000-2004 profit baseline." In her May 2006 speech, Clinton proposed instituting this tax "over the next two years" on oil companies that "reap huge benefits from unexpectedly high energy prices." According to the press release, the companies would "be required to pay a portion of their profits into the strategic energy fund," which would invest in alternative energies. The press release also stated that this "temporary fee," combined with "eliminat[ing] oil company tax breaks" and "ensur[ing] that oil companies pay their fair share of royalties for drilling on public lands," would "raise more than $50 billion to fund research, development and deployment of energy technologies that will reduce America's oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions."
From Will's April 5 column:
The next wave of stories about "soaring" gas prices will predictably trigger some politicians' indignation about oil companies' profits. The day after Exxon Mobil's announcement that it earned $39.5 billion in 2006, Hillary Clinton said: "I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence."
Clinton's "take" reveals her confiscatory itch. Her clunky "toward the direction of" suggests that she actually knows that independence is as chimerical a goal as Soviet grain production goals were.
People making money = good... People making money by taxing = bad... Governments need money to keep a nation alive by taxation, thus, all governments = BAD!!
And the whole argument that taxing private companies is wrong is horse crap because these fossil fuels companies are taking natural resources from the citizens that LIVE ON THE LAND!! Tax Exxon back to the stone age and maybe we will stop global warming and save the earth...
Probably should capitilize MAYBE. Shouldn't we all (the entire population of the earth) be taxed substantially more than we are, then MAYBE we would come up with a way of exhaling without emitting CO2.
How long before we start the "yes she did", "no she didn't", "yes she did", "no she didn't", "yes she did", "no she didn't", "yes she did", "no she didn't", "yes she did", "no she didn't", "yes she did", "no she didn't", "yes she did", "no she didn't", ....?
I figure by 3 PM Eastern it will start.
Saying Clinton is stalinist or confiscatory in nature because she wants to tax certain levels of energy company industry profits is overblown sensationalism.
Instead, be reasonable, be calm, and explain that the reason certain energy companies are making $$$ hand over fist is because the demand for their product is through the roof. As long as people and governments still want their product in such high demand and the prices being offered, they'll still make money. If they're not offering enough energy, the market will introduce other players. If the price becomes too high, demand will fall along with profits. Easy economics.
Except that these same energy companies have an incredible amount of influence on the demand for their product.
Did 'yinz guys see the documentary 'Who killed the electric car'? It shows how viable non-fossil energies are squashed by corporations dependent on fossil fuels...
Do you mean by lobbying against emission standards or something?
If that's what you were getting at, then blame the politicos for taking the money and being corrupt before you tax more.
No. More directly, by stopping the car's production despite its popularity.
AND the extraction industries are heavily subsidized by taxpayers, when they get obscene profits we deserve a rebate.
On this I agree, subsidizing a profitable industry is worse than buying contaiminated wheat gluten from China, while paying our own wheat farmers not to grow wheat. Why in the H___ are we buying food stuffs (outside of "fresh" fruits and vegetables from South of equator) overseas instead of supporting our own with non-government $$$$??
Kooky George Will is another one of those freeloading right wingers -- he simply doesn't want to pay his fair share of taxes. He gets his blouse all sweaty just thinking about those poor oil conglomerates -- you know, the ones that pay him $50,000 per speech?
As to alluding to "Communism" and "Stalinism," those are certainly harsh words, yet the wingnuts bandy them all the time, even as they protest it when normal people use the word "fascist" in the same sentence as "Bush." Seems to me that the girlie-men on the radical right really need to stop being such hair-afire ladies and get a grip.
As if "fair" wasn't a subjective word. Anyway, you still let the markets decide, and if certain industry players are illegally manipulating the market, you go after them that way.
And when they forego all those public susidies they get we can talk about the MARKET forces until then they want to say market when we say taxes and want to belly up to the trough like everybody else the rest of the time.
I agree on the subsidy thing, Solon, but again, get rid of those before you tax more. Taxing subsidized companies seems awfully contrary.
Perhaps. Companies should be taxed just like people. THEY like people benfit from the taxpayer investment in their ability to make money. THEY get to use the worldclass satelite communication system and world class transportation system built by taxpayers. If you mean before they tax them MORE, fine either way gets our money back but I can see why a subsidy looks necessary in 2004 then becomes moot when circumstances turn a marginally profitable industry into an obscenely profitable industry. There is no way to get rid of ALL the subsidies they benift from. How much of a subsidy was opening up the Iraqi oil fields for whatever corporation gets THOSE contracts the protection of the police and firefighters to their infrastructure like offices, and those things I mentioned earlier. Again if you mean EXTRA taxes I think its ok to get a rebate on the subsidies they have been given, huge ones from this administration now it is shown they flat dont need them. If you look closely you will see an awful lot of our economy is public cost turned into private profit. I think taxing them is a fair way to recoup our investment on their ability to make money. ESPECIALLY when the direct subsidies like the oil industry are what we are talking about.
Are we getting back on yesterdays effeminate Republican track?
Effeminate Repubs?
I thought we were the effeminate ones?
I'm getting confused. I'd better make sure before I go out in these heels.
Nah, King- Repubs just like to call libs effeminate because they're not terrified of women (and gays and Mexicans and Muslims and Satan).
It makes them feel manly, somehow .
Even if Clinton tries to pander to the masses with claims she would tax the oil industry, I doubt she'd ever do it. When it comes to the clinch, that oil lobby money is far more important than easing the strain those greedy s.o.b.'s are putting on the economy in general.
Another argument for public funding for at least presidential elections. It woulde be cheaper in the long run. Zachary Roth, in the Washington Monthly, recomends charging lobyist's to support the plan.
I got a different idea. We should run the presidency the way they do in Europe. Every state gets a six-month term at the presidency, in alphabetical order. No elections. I'd take away all the monarchial powers too...no more veto, no more pardons, no more unaccountability.
The Oil cartel, if I may be so bold as to call them a cartel, is the driving force behind the world's longest running price fixing scheme. Nobody can give me a sane and sensible answer why two ostensibly COMPETING gas stations (BP and ExxonMobil) ACROSS FROM ONE ANOTHER charge virtually the SAME PRICE for a HOMOGENEOUS PRODUCT. It's price fixing, and the government, since FOREVER, has looked the other way.
Randy
The BP/ExxonMobil tandem I cited is a living example not a mile from where I break bread. (note to self: get less stale bread)
Randy
Does someone have a gun on you, forcing you to buy there? Go on to the next place.