How many people in America have the slightest idea about how much tax Exxon (or any other oil company) pays to the government?
But if you were to ask about their profits, I’m sure you would either get (a) blank stares, or (b) a litany of class envy.
With gasoline prices spiking over the last year, the Socialist Party of America (a.k.a. the “Democrats”) has smelled an opportunity. Over many months, one politician after another has had the audacity to call for a “windfall” profits tax against oil companies. Why? Apparently oil companies are just too damn successful at what they do, and the Socialists are always itching to redistribute wealth to their pet people/projects. To justify the unjustifiable, the Socialists have had the challenge of making it appear as if oil companies did something wrong, immoral, or illegal (hence the economic myth of “price gouging”). Not surprisingly, after repeated “investigations” and Stalinist show trials before Congressional committees, the Socialists across America have, to their great dismay, not uncovered any wrong doing. Meanwhile, the leftist media does its part in demonizing oil companies by reporting on their “record” profits as if they were reporting on Haley’s Comet. The undercurrent in these stories should be obvious: oil companies have done wrong, they don’t deserve the billions they have earned, and all us middle class Americans have been robbed!
Surprisingly, next to tobacco companies, no other industry receives as much undeserved hatred as “Big Oil.” One might think that entities which provide the lifeblood to economies across the world would get some respect. Perhaps in a saner world.
Exxon Posts Record $32.36 Billion Tax Payment by Mark Perry
More on Exxon’s tax bill for 2007 and 2006.
Filed under: Everything Else , Oil, oil companies, profits, socialists, taxes
