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.

Obama Got the Nomination

The long national nightmare (if you are a Democrat) is now over.

A surge of support from uncommitted delegates gave Obama the 2,118 votes he needed to clinch the nomination and defeat rival Hillary Clinton, a former first lady who entered the race as a heavy favorite.

And now Hillary is angling for the VP spot. If I was Obama I would totally spurn Hillary for a more centrist Democratic woman from a Red State like Claire McCaskill from Missouri. I think Hillary is far too divisive and Obama shouldn't have someone who hates him as VP. I mean he might just get an RFK-like sendoff like Hillary day dreamed about.

Ferraro Says Obama Being Black Got Him This Far

It seems that the Obama campaign wants to force her to resign because of what she said:

Ferraro, who sits on Clinton's finance committee and has spoken at her
rallies, sparked the firestorm when she was quoted by a California newspaper
as saying: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this
position."

That is one of the main problems with the Democrats it seems. Everything seems to stem from race in their thinking. Obama got to this position because he is a good speaker, he actually inspires people, and he might actually win the Presidency because he is a fresh face and not just more of the same like Hillary.

I have to agree with her though when she says that if Obama was a generic white male candidate (John Edwards) then he wouldn't have gotten the *Democratic* nod over Hillary. The Dems have always been the "color-conscious party" instead of the "color-blind" party.

The Dems always seem to make race and issue by repeatedly calling Obama the "black candidate" over and over again. I can tell by looking at a picture of him that he might be a "black candidate" the Dems do not need to point it out over-and-over again. Americans have seen a black person run for other sorts of office before.

However, I would be willing to bet even-money that only the media would be talking about their race if Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell ran on the Republican ticket. Republicans would be talking about Rice and Powells conservative bonafides and whether they would be electable with the "Bush-deficit" hanging over them. Race would be about the last thing on Republican's minds in a discussion of a Rice or Powell candidacy.

After all, the Republican party has been a pro-black party since its inception in 1854. It was the Democrats who were the Segregationists (George Wallace,) the Klu Klux Klan members (Robert Byrd,) and voted in the Jim Crow laws (Plessy v. Ferguson.) If not for Nixon's "Southern Strategy" blacks would still have a Republican majority to this day.