Obama is Backing the Idiodic Windfall Tax

The more I hear from Obama the more it sounds like he just doesn't understand economic matters at all.

"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills," the Illinois senator said.

Will he make oil companies like Shell Oil, TotalFinaElf, BP pay this tax as well? I mean they are reaping windfall profits as well but they aren't based in the US. Also what prevents the oil companies from simply passing on the tax to the consumers thus making $4.00 gas into $5.00 gas? Of course like his all-troops out in 16 months Iraq policy he doesn't have any sort of plan for the "what-ifs."

Reading his plan further makes things even worse.

The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for working families, an expansion of the earned- income tax credit and assistance for people who can't afford their energy bills.

So Obama wants oil companies taxed based on oil prices? He does know that the oil companies barely affect prices since they only pull about 17% of the oil out of the ground? This tax makes no sense at all. I think Obama needs to realize that oil prices are globally set and these are domestic companies he is robbing. OPEC, Russia and China have way more clout in setting prices then Exxon will ever have.

Finally what keeps the oil companies from simply pumping less domestic oil or shuttering refineries when oil goes to $81? That seems to be what happened when Carter tried this same scheme in 1980.

We've been down this road before. Under a windfall tax signed into law by Jimmy Carter, domestic oil production plummeted by an estimated 795 million barrels, while imports of foreign oil surged. Congress had anticipated windfall tax revenues of $393 billion. The actual take: just $80 billion. Like so much else associated with the Carter era, the windfall-profits tax was a counterproductive flop. Do Democrats really believe a new dose of Carternomics is going to make today's economy stronger?

So Obama's plan will be to penalize US oil companies in order to increase the wealth of foreign exporters? Way to score an own goal Obama. The funny thing is the Dems actually think this will lower gas prices? I think Obama needs to go back and retake Economics 101 since he seems to have flunked it at Columbia.