Utah Free Press

Windfall Tax Will Make Gas Prices Soar.

Originally published April 26th, 2006 by Rich Okelberry

I know. Everyone is upset about higher gas prices. Of course the politicians vow to find out who is responsible and punish them. Isn’t it strange how they kind of stop there, short of actually doing something about it. Ironically, the national Democrats seem to be gearing up for one of the largest battles against high gas prices, with vows of investigations, hearings and public testimony.

It’s kind of funny that before doing any of that, many of our Democrat leaders in Washington already have a fix. They’re brilliant plan is to charge the oil companies huge amounts of money. Thereby cutting into their profits, and forcing them to lower prices… Wait, how is that supposed to cut prices? You’re plan is to lower prices by taxing Big oil even more. You see the plan is being called, “the Windfall Tax,” and it is supposed to keep companies from over charging for their products by dramatically increasing their taxes whenever the company makes a large profit.

The problem with this, is the fact that it will eventually just becomes another round-about-tax as the Oil companies do what Big Tobacco did after their big settlement and simply passes the increase on to us the consumer. Of course the politicians know that you all are too stupid and ignorant to figure it out. Well aren’t you? What these politicians don’t like to talk about is the fact that the Government can make up to 5 times as much on a gallon of gas as Big Oil does. If your beloved elected officials truly wanted to help you out, they would simply drop the ‘Gas’ taxes. They won’t do that so sit down and quit getting you hopes up. The irony about this national debate is the fact that the Democrats are leading the charge. Of course their minds don’t work very far ahead so I am going to help them out. Democrats hate Bush, and when I mean hate, I mean concentration camp kind of hate.

Now they see Bush and Cheney, who incidentally liberals seem to hate even more than Bush, and see in their heads, “OIL!” Somewhere, back behind their eyes they conjure up the idea that they can take out Bush by going after Big Oil for the high gas prices. The problem is, people are pissed about paying too much for gas and Democrats have long wanted us to pay 2 and 3 times as much for a gallon and would much prefer we sell is by the Liter, because that is what France does and they love France. Their problem revolves around how to raise the price of gas, and continue to blame it on Bush. Whammy, the Windfall Tax. Now I know why gas prices keep surging and it has very little to do with many of the excuses you hear politicians from both side of the fence talking about. While there are a lot of contributing factors like, too many types of gas being refined, not building a single refinery to keep up with capacity in nearly 30 years and the Republican favorite, not drilling in Alaska.

All of these are valid, but none explain the massive fluctuations in market price. That my friends, is caused by one thing and one thing only, wild commodity speculation. Just like any commodity, oil is bought and sold for its premium on the market, where anyone, even you and me can buy some. Now why would you or I want to own oil? Because, as with any commodity, if we own some and the price goes up, we make money. My point has always been that we all have no business buying oil at all. I see oil as a natural resource like water. We don’t allow water to be bought and sold on the open market, except when it’s bottled and then what they are really selling in the bottle. We don’t treat it like a commodity because we all need it to survive. Unfortunately oil has become the same way, if oil supplies dry up tomorrow, literally millions of Americans would die of starvation and dehydration in short order. Oil is connected to the production and transportation of everything. Take a guy that rides a bicycle to work everyday to “Save the Planet.”

What he is really doing is consuming large amounts of oil that is used to mine the minerals in his bike, make the rubber in the tires and grease for the bearings. All the time he glides along on a paved pathways made by big trucks sucking gas. You really want to be anti-oil? Take off your clothes and go sit in a field. Anything else you do requires oil. So what is my solution? Simply remove oil from open trading on the commodities exchange and encourage as many other countries to do it as possible. That doesn’t mean that it won’t be traded. Instead we will only allow companies that use oil for production to bid on it. In other words, if you don’t directly use it, you can’t buy it. This may sound strange, but we also restrict the sale of plutonium for the better good of the people. The next thing to do is drop the taxes. As for drilling in Alaska, eventually we will need to and when the entire world really needs it, we will still have it. Take it out of the ground now and it will end up in China or Japan not the US. Oh… you probably didn’t know that Alaska Oil generally is shipped to other countries that buy it on the commodities exchange. So much for lowering our prices right?