If the Republicans had not blocked the windfall profits tax, how would the oil companies have raised prices?

You should understand GOP tactics involve saying the tax boogeyman will get you, and the base runs and hides. A simple yet effective means of generating support for and against whatever the topic is.

Jimmy Carter tried this and it did lead to higher prices and less gas. In fact gas was rationed and you could only get gas on certain days and there were lines around the block to get gas.

We live in a free market society. In simple terms when there is a lot of something the price will be low and when there is less of something the price will be higher.

The reason that gas prices are so high is because the economies of India and China are booming and they need oil but the supply of oil has not increased so the price has gone up.

If they had placed a windfall tax on the oil companies they simply would have sold less gas here and more to other countries where they were not heavily taxed. This would mean that there would be less gas here with the same demand so the price would have gone up. This would also cause gas shortages and would probably mean gas rationing. Which is exactly what happened when Carter raised taxes on oil companies

Thank goodness the Republicans know that the defination of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different out come and that the knew some history! There are several other things you can blame on the Republicans but this isn't one of them!

If you want to make gas cheaper you need to pressure the Democrats to break their alliance with environmentalist to allow oil exploration and drilling here in the US. We have enought known oil reserves here to make us energy independent for a very long time. Right now Cuba and China are slant drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida taking oil that we should be getting but can't because of regulations that the Democrats and environmentalist have placed in the way!

All taxes are simply expenses. To operate a business, a certain profit level is necessary. Higher expenses lower profits. Ordinarily, you could not simply raise prices to make up the extra expense because you have to compete against others in your industry. But if the expenses were raised for EVERYONE in the industry, then the threat of competition no longer applies. So all oil companies will have higher expenses, so they will all raise their prices because they know that their competitors will also.

Sure those profits will also be taxed, which is why they would raise their prices enough to cover that as well.

The better question would be: How can taxing the oil companies LOWER gas prices? This was the goal of the Democrats. Or was their goal simply to punish the oil companies? Either way, the consumer loses with the Democrats proposal.

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Wrong.. Prices would go even higher because they would increase the price to include the government share of the windfall profits.. I can guarantee you that the spendthrift congress will accept any income of money no matter what it does to the unwitting consumer!

Carter tried price controls in the 70's.. ask someone over 40 about the gas lines and shortages.

I'm a democrat, and even I believe taxing oil company profits is ridiculous. The oil companies can always ALL raise prices. It's called "collusion". It's illegal, but it's only illegal if the government enforces it. Which they won't with Prez Bush in office.

The oil companies are making as much money as they can right now before a Dem becomes president.

So you are saying just because they tax "profit" the oil companies have no choice but pay it without taking any other action? You are delusional. Of course they are going to raise the price of everything they sell which means the price of oil will go up along with the price of everything made from petroleum products, like plastics. Read your history, Carter tried it in the late 70s, check out the results.

I don't understand why people are calling the oil companies evil. They gave congress the solution to high gas prices which is increasing production by allowing drilling offshore and opening up ANWR. People argue that all this oil will be put on the world market like it is a bad thing. We get a huge chunk of our oil from Canada and Mexico(closer to us than Alaska). What opening up ANWR to drilling will do is increase supply thus causing a decrease in price.

The Republicans had enough presence of mind to know that tax on windfall profits would be pass unto you and me at the pump with even higher gas prices.

You really think they are going to suck up that tax you don't know how business works.

What is the government going to do with that windfall?

Give it to us?

In your dreams.

The gas companies can certainly raise prices. Since their profits would actually stay static because those taxes would be deducted from their earnings it wouldn't be a problem at all..

The Republicans wouldn't even allow this to be debated so that we could hear the full discussion of pros and cons and how this would work.