Saturday, August 9, 2008

August 9 2008

I have read that Presidential Candidate Obama has proposed a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies as part of his energy plan. Two things strike me about this proposal: (1) it was tried in the 1970s by Jimmy Carter and the then democrats in Congress and it did nothing to alleviate the energy crisis of that time; and (2) if we tax excess profits of corporations, should we not provide some form of relief to corporations when they have excess losses, I am thinking here of the American automobile companies. It occurs to me that the best thing the Federal government can do for the American economy is to stay as far away from it as possible. The price of oil has begun to come down, and thanks to our Washington gridlock (and I am not talking about the traffic), the Federal government has had absolutely nothing to do with the decline.