What right do liberals think they have to tell companies how to spend their profits?

You guys are over the top!

You live in America, and you want to penalize success? Do you even know what your own country is founded on?

People in the oil business are successful for a reason. For crying out loud, they are successful because they provide you and me with products we want and need. We should be grateful they're even in the business - do you know how much money and expertise it takes to start up an oil drilling company?

Furthermore oil companies are not the ones dictating the price. The market does. supply and demand. Oil companies were here when the profit on oil was low. They're here now, too, and you want to take away the incentive for them to stay in the business?! You only make it more expensive for everybody to be anti-business and anti-capitalistic.

If you tax them, the only thing happening is the oil companies sending the bill back to the consumers.

People enter businesses because they're profitable. That's the way businesses work. If you cannot understand this simple concept, you truly ought to not express yourself on such matters.

Keep America free - keep America as it was intended. Those of you saying that businesses should not have rights are even more over the top. Don't you appreciate what capitalism have brought you? Great computers, the Internet, efficient vehicles, space-technology, consumer goods etc. Without rights there would be no America and no capitalism from which some of the greatest inventions have come.

America is based on rights. If you think rights should be taken away from someone, you're truly disturbed, and you should REALLY rethink the nation you think you know as America. You've got it all wrong.

I really can't believe this. I'm fighting to move from Europe to America, to enjoy the freedoms you have that we don't, as a consequence of what thousands of people have died for in the American revolution and in the civil war - and some of you guys don't like this. You just want America to become another Europe, regulated and anti-freedom. It's mind-boggling how a great nation have been taken over by people on the opposite isle of the founding fathers.

I own a company, here in Scandinavia. I do so, because I want to create a future for myself. I want to save up for a car, for instance. I like cars. That dream, though, is being ruined by the government taking 50% of my company's profit and 60% of my income. In return I get health care I cannot trust, infrastructure that does not work and roads the government does not want to fix because they see that as an incentive to increase CO2 emissions. Oh, btw., and I cannot buy candy without being even more penalized. My every action is being controlled by the government.

I want to go to America and fight for freedom, when so many of you guys obviously don't want to. Kudos to you guys who understand the value of freedom - I guess you're mostly republicans, but I do see some democrats too. I like the argument with the tax-dollars that should not be given to companies in subsidies. I totally agree. Subsidies should not be given to any business. That's not a free market.

Some one,plz stop the presses. I cannot believe what i am reading. Finally a question that was asked by the right wing(nuts) all rolled up with huge amounts of phony out rage and was answered, short, sweet and to the point from the like minded on the left. A special thanks to

IDEOGENE,ANDREW,DARLING J,for you have helped to start morning

off with a great big smile. bmoc2525, the answers from the left just don't get any better than that. I would like to add that as long as the energy bill was formulated under the cover of darkness and remains there by

executive privilege, how do you or anyone else know for sure that the best interests of the public are being served here.

It's not justified.Oil companies use those profits for research in alternative energy (1.2 trillion) and bringing future oil supplies. The oil companies also paid their stockholders which is more money put into the economy. The oil companies didn't make the price of oil go to $147 a barrel. So they did well this year, their net profit margin is still around 6 - 10 percent. They have never been found to be doing anything illegal.

The corn ethanol is heavily subsidized, but it does cost more than gas by about 25 cents per gallon while more effecient sugar ethanol is heavily taxed so as not to be able to compete with america's corn ethanol. It is also causing high food prices and food shortages world wide, but the dems want to increase the amount used over the next several years and that's only going to make matters worse.

But there IS a precedence for a Windfall Profits Tax.

One was enacted from 1980 - 1988 and raised $80 million dollars, if I recall. Plus, there were excess profit taxes during War I, World War II, and the Korean War eras. So, it's not that unusual.

And I don't mind rewarding a company for hard work. I just don't understand how there could be record profits if we HAVE to pay $3.99 for a gallon of regular. It tells me that somewhere along the line, prices are being inflated.

The bigger question is: "Why the hell are we/the U.S. government giving $18 billion in tax breaks to oil companies?????

have you ever asked yourself why YOU don't own part of the natural resources that come from YOUR country?

anything that comes from the natural resources of America should benefit all Americans. in every country in which this is the policy, those exploring for/extracting/refining/delivering the oil all make a profit, and the citizens are able to enjoy a perfectly reasonable price at the pump.

in America, the rights to our resources are given away to companies who not only make record profits (Exxon just posted $11.8 BILLION over the last 3 months), but bank offshore so as to avoid taxation and don't even reinvest but a tiny fraction of those profits back into America.

so the real question is, what right do conservatives have to give away what should belong to every American, only to see nothing in return but more political donations?

edit: profit comes after taxes, genius.

It is not going to end. Liberals keep getting put into office -- how the hell Pelosi got in is STILL a mystery to me. These people have very long histories of telling people what to do but the rules don't apply to them (Mr. Gore, is that you?) but wrap it in the guise of "we're helping the children" or some BS.

If we have a nationalized healthcare system...as one of our latest candidates proposes....who do you think will pay for it? The govemment. Simple, right? Wrong. The government will not only pay for it -- but then it will have the right to tell us what we can and cannot do. Maybe fat people or old people won't be entitled to certain procedures because they're a higher risk.

Whoever has the money, has the power. Period.

And do you think that our taxes will not reflect that?

I can't decide if it's ignorance or the refusal to admit that Barry is NOT the guy that is the cancer that is afflicting most voters right now.

Congress has the power to regulate commerce. The power was granted to the People's branch by the founding fathers because they wanted us to be a democratic Republic, not a "capitalism".

I really wish conservatives would read the Constitution. We could save soooo much time.

Why should companies have rights at all? Rights are for people, not for organizations.

I'm sure you'd complain if all the tax dollars that government takes from corporations came from your pocket instead.

Seriously, this is money the government needs and has to come from somewhere. Why shouldn't it be taken from those making the most profit in the US?

Do you likewise complain of the subsidies that corporations receive from the US. Because I would alot more sympathetic to your argument if these same oil companies weren't at the same time getting corporate welfare from the US government.

Actually this liberal doesn't want to tell them how to spend their profits... I just wonder why profitable companies get billions in subsidies from the tax payers... a fact that you righties always just seem to gloss over.

Why should my tax dollars be given to profitable businesses? It's a simple question, try to answer it.

I'd be satisfied with simply ending huge government subsidies to the oil industry.