4um: Obama calls for windfall tax on oil profits as gas prices soar

Title: Obama calls for windfall tax on oil profits as gas prices soar
Source: Agence France Press
URL Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqWhoBksx6mCNf_jCCUPnoojMlww
Published: Apr 25, 2008
Author: Agence France Press
Post Date: 2008-04-25 18:59:58 by aristeides
Keywords: None
Views: 400
Comments: 36

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama called for a windfall tax on oil company profits Friday, as pump prices in the United States hit a new record high.

"For the well-off in this country, high gas prices are mostly an annoyance. But to most Americans, they're a huge problem, bordering on a crisis," he told reporters at a gas station in Indiana, where he is campaigning.

According to the automobile association AAA, the average price of a gallon (3.78 liters) of gas reached a record 3.58 dollars Friday.

Obama proposes oil companies be taxed on windfall profits from oil sold at or above 80 dollars a barrel, and the revenue be used to help relieve the burden of rising prices on working people, according to his campaign.

He also wants more transparency in the way pump prices are fixed, a tax cut for the middle classes that would benefit families by up to 1,000 dollars a year, and a 150-billion-dollar investment over 10 years in clean energy.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has proposed cutting federal taxes on pump gas this summer to counter rising prices, but Obama rejected this idea, saying such taxes brought in needed funds for road maintenance.

"I don't want somebody to save essentially 25 bucks -- that's what the savings would yield for the average driver -- and now they're potentially driving over an unsafe bridge," he said.

"I think it's a better option for us to use the mechanism I've talked about, providing a middle-class tax cut would give people relief" for rising food and energy prices.

"And at the same time go after a windfall profit tax that would be used to provide relief to low-income folks," he said.

The Illinois senator turned his attention to McCain and to his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, referring to them as "the candidates with the Washington experience."

"They mean well. But they've been in Washington an awful long time and even with all the experience they talk about, nothing has happened," he said.

He noted that the United States did not raise fuel-efficiency standards for more than 30 years, adding: "What have we got for all that experience? Gas that's approaching four dollars a gallon."

PACs and lobbyists aided Obama's rise - Data contrast with his theme

Using campaign appearances, e-mails to supporters, and Iowa TV ads, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has repeatedly reminded voters that his presidential campaign does not accept contributions from lobbyists or political action committees, casting his decision as a noble departure from the ways of Washington.

He hit the theme hard again in Tuesday's Democratic debate in Chicago as he sought to capitalize on rival Hillary Clinton's remark last weekend that taking lobbyists' cash is acceptable because they "represent real Americans."

"The people in this stadium need to know who we're going to fight for," Obama said at Soldier Field. "The reason that I'm running for president is because of you, not because of folks who are writing big checks, and that's a clear message that has to be sent, I think, by every candidate."

But behind Obama's campaign rhetoric about taking on special interests lies a more complicated truth. A Globe review of Obama's campaign finance records shows that he collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and PACs as a state legislator in Illinois, a US senator, and a presidential aspirant.

In Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate, from 1996 to 2004, almost two-thirds of the money he raised for his campaigns - $296,000 of $461,000 - came from PACs, corporate contributions, or unions, according to Illinois Board of Elections records. He tapped financial services firms, real estate developers, healthcare providers, oil companies, and many other corporate interests, the records show.

Obama's US Senate campaign committee, starting with his successful run in 2004, has collected $128,000 from lobbyists and $1.3 million from PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. His $1.3 million from PACs represents 8 percent of what he has raised overall. Clinton's Senate committee, by comparison, has raised $3 million from PACs, 4 percent of her total amount raised, the group said.

In addition, Obama's own federal PAC, Hopefund, took in $115,000 from 56 PACs in the 2005-2006 election cycle out of $4.4 million the PAC raised, according to CQ MoneyLine, which collects Federal Election Commission data. Obama then used those PAC contributions - including thousands from defense contractors, law firms, and the securities and insurance industries - to build support for his presidential run by making donations to Democratic Party organizations and candidates around the country.

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that after seeing the influence of lobbyists firsthand during his two years in Washington, Obama decided before he entered the presidential race that he would take a different approach to fund-raising than he had in the past.

"He's leading by example and taking steps that he feels need to be taken on the national stage to clean up the undue influence of Washington lobbyists on the policies and priorities of Washington," Psaki said. "His leadership on this issue is an evolving process."

Psaki said Obama believes that healthcare lobbyists have blocked progress toward universal health coverage, and that oil company lobbyists have blocked badly needed changes to America's energy policies.

Though Obama has returned thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from registered federal lobbyists since he declared his candidacy in February, his presidential campaign has maintained ties with lobbyists and lobbying firms to help raise some of the $58.9 million he collected through the first six months of 2007. Obama has raised more than $1.4 million from members of law and consultancy firms led by partners who are lobbyists, The Los Angeles Times reported last week. And The Hill, a Washington newspaper, reported earlier this year that Obama's campaign had reached out to lobbyists' networks to use their contacts to help build his fund-raising base.

This activity, along with Obama's past contributions from lobbyists and PACs, has drawn fire from opposing campaigns. Some political analysts say Obama, by casting himself as an uncorrupted good-government crusader, has set himself up for charges of hypocrisy.

"If you're running a campaign about credibility, that credibility and persona are so important you better be squeaky clean," said Richard Semiatin, a political scientist at American University. "While he's getting good traction out of this, I think in the long term he's really got to be careful."

From the day he entered the presidential race, Obama has projected an outside-the-Beltway persona, positioning himself as the Washington change agent that Americans are pining for. Last week, his campaign began running a new TV spot in Iowa, in which the narrator says, "He's leading by example, refusing contributions from PACs and Washington lobbyists who have too much power today."

In the Democrats' previous debate, on July 23, Obama was unequivocal when challenged by former Alaska senator Mike Gravel about who his donors were.

"Well, the fact is I don't take PAC money and I don't take lobbyists' money," Obama said, touting his work on an ethics reform bill that just passed Congress. "That's the kind of leadership that I've shown in the Senate. That's the kind of leadership that I showed when I was a state legislator. And that's the kind of leadership that I'll show as president of the United States."

And on June 25, right before the second quarter ended, Obama sent an e-mail to supporters asking them to contribute to his campaign to make up for the lack of special-interest money.

"Candidates typically spend a week like this - right before the critical June 30th financial reporting deadline - on the phone day and night, begging Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs to write huge checks," the e-mail said. "Not me. Our campaign has rejected the money-for-influence game and refused to accept funds from registered federal lobbyists and political action committees."

Obama's main Democratic target on the issue of lobbyist and PAC contributions has been Clinton, whom Obama has been working to paint as a figurehead for the broken politics of Washington. Through June, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Clinton had collected $413,000 from lobbyists and $533,000 from PACs - leading all 2008 presidential contenders in both categories. Clinton has also raised about $3 million from PACs and $400,000 from lobbyists for her Senate campaigns, according to the group.

Clinton's campaign declined to comment.

Peverill Squire, a political scientist at the University of Iowa, said Obama, given his record of raising special-interest money throughout his political career, was taking a "gamble" in holding himself up as a beacon of purity.

"He probably will be hurt if he's put in a position where he's trying to draw very fine distinctions between his present campaign and his past behavior," Squire said.

Obama's campaign is relying almost exclusively on an unprecedented network of grass-roots donors and activists - nearly 260,000 of them had given him money through June alone.

And some good-government activists say that, past fund-raising practices aside, Obama has genuinely been a champion for ethics and campaign reform, both in the Illinois Legislature and in Congress.

"On the one hand, sure, he rose to power as many people do in this town, which is to raise money from the people who have the money," said Gary Kalman, of the advocacy group US PIRG.

At the same time, he added, Obama has championed public financing for elections and he fought hard to pass the federal ethics reform bill.

Is he so illiterate, so uneducated, that he doesn't know that the oil companies just pass on ALL the taxes they are charged? If he is that stupid he shouldn't even be allowed to take a tour through the White House.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

No, he's not that illiterate. He just wants the fed crime family to get its vig. He doesn't give two shits about how it effects the consumers.

Crap, the bulk of GOP voters really did choose McCain over Dr Paul, didn't they?

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.

Yeah, but don't tell his fans on here. They think he is the best thing that has happened to the country since it was founded, if not before.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

Of course they will oppose it publicly. And then laugh about it behind closed doors. It is a freakin' EXCISE tax and they all get passed on to someone else, in the case of the oil companies to the final consumer at the pumps. And I know a little about that having worked in that industry for a while.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

Of course they'll oppose it, at the same time, they will be handing him suitcases full of cash as a thank you for helping keep ANWR and offshore off limits.

No company should be subsidized in any way. I would also do away with subsidies if I could run things for a while.

Yes, the bulk of them apparently did choose that nutbar, McCain. And they could have voted for an actual American, they had that choice this year. And this is the first election an actual American has run in a long time.

Yep, we are screwed. No doubt about it, America is on its last trip around the bowl (without divine intervention).

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

You forgot to factor in the oil services companies. It's my understanding that most big oil honchos were not real keen on invading Iraq, Conoco excepted.

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

If what you say is correct, Obama's tax would still have the effect of transferring money from the rich to the poor to enable the poor to afford the more expensive gas.

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

Did the excess profits taxes during World War One and World War Two result in an economic train wreck?

I'm fairly certain the Great Depression was caused by the same forces that have been bilking the public of their wealth since time immemorial.

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

Not blind; stupid. Public 'education' has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams...

Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org

I remember shoveling coal to heat grandma's house when I was a kid...KENTUCKY FIRST...we'll strip mine the other states later! (With apologies to the original...)

Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org

Sweet. I wonder if he's related to Lucas Oil, whose new sports arena us Indianapolis taxpayers are being extorted to build?

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

Oh that's good. Let's get the Government to CAUSE shortages now just like they did in the late 1970s when they did the same thing.

The solution is MORE SUPPLY. We have PLENTY of oil off the California coast but the DEMOCRATS won't let us drill it.

I suspect they all disapprove of the way you guys are so free and easy with calling pretty much anyone who disagrees with you "Communist".

You know, the intolerance you guys exhibit of any opinions that disagree with your own is very much like that of a Marx, Lenin, or Stalin.

Something like the '29 stock market crash and the ensuing economic downturn was probably inevitable round about that time. But there is a good case to be made that it was government mismanagement of the situation that made the downturn so severe and long-term.

And any attempts to disprove the charges falls on deaf ears, because the same name calling is repeated over and over. Really boring.

'Individuals should not take responsibility for their own defense. That’s what the police are for. ... If I oppose individuals defending themselves, I have to support police defending them. I have to support a police state.”' Alan Dershowitz

I've always found it odd that the largest financial collapse in US and recent world history occurred a mere 14 years after the largest "progressive" reforms of the US monetary system. Wasn't the very reason for enacting these reforms to stop the boom and bust cycle?

I noticed the same thing after Nixon put the final coffin nail in the gold standard. Cars that cost $3,500 were going for $10,000 by 1980.

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

I read from historians that the depressions that followed the panics of 1873 and 1893 were even more severe than the Great Depression of the 1930's.

The Panic of 1907, which it is often said played a major role in the decision to set up the Federal Reserve system, was strictly limited to the financial markets. It did not spread to the general economy, and no depression followed.

I heard yesterday the author of a book on the Panic of 1907 speaking on C- SPAN. He said the panic was followed by a recession lasting two years. I guess I have to correct what I posted earlier.

Since Nixon did that, real wages -- adjusted for inflation -- for all but the richest Americans have not risen. In fact, they have fallen a bit.