Unbelievable

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) has introduced H.R. 5800 the "Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act", I have heard of some dumb bills coming from people with (D) after their name but this one might take the cake. Many of Americans are fed up with high gas prices, trust me I understand, but what this bill proposes would only hurt the situation. It first sets up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to determine when oil companies profits are in excess and then tax them on those profits. Besides this being pragmatically stupid in sounds like something straight out of Communist Russia. One of the main pillars of capitalism is the idea of no limitation on the accumulation of property, and this bill straps dynamite to that pillar and blows it to pieces. Democrats usually try to hide it when they're closest Marxists but it always makes me laugh when they don't even care and make it apparent. This bill would tax oil companies "windfall", or undeserved, profits. I don't know about you but I don't like the idea of the government deciding what profits are deserved. The idea, be it a bad one, is that oil companies would lower prices so their profits wouldn't be as high ergo less taxes for them. Now this formula simply doesn't make sense to anyone with even a remote understanding of economics. If you increases the taxes on the oil companies profits they aren't going to say "Okay government you got us we'll lower our prices now, sorry" they will simply pass any loss in profit on to the consumer, which means even higher gas prices. I hear liberals say the oil companies don't pay enough taxes, really, do liberals even care to see how much they actually pay. Let's take Exxon Mobil for instance, in 2007 they paid $30 billion in taxes. The bottom 50% of American taxpayers (65,000,000 people) paid $27.4 billion in taxes. So one corporation paid more in taxes then 65,000,000 people combined, yea they don't pay any taxes.  Lawmakers need to realize that increasing taxes on the oil companies isn't going to lower gas prices one bit, all it will do is take more money from the private sector (which creates jobs and investment) and turn it over to the government.