More Senatorial Gasbaggery

Does this have to happen every year?

Per Reuters:

Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island said record energy prices have been a windfall for big oil companies and they need to share some of their profits with consumers who are in need.

Now, from the International Herald Tribune:

Consumers [in Pennsylvania] also pay state taxes of 32.3 cents per gallon on gasoline, 11th highest in the nation.
...

Fuel prices in Pennsylvania averaged $3.28 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline and $4.33 a gallon for diesel on Monday, compared with $2.70 for regular unleaded and $2.84 for diesel a year ago.

Federal fuel taxes amount to 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel.

It appears that the full set of fuel taxes paid by Minnesotans are $.404 per gallon and $.384 for Texans as of January, 2008 per the API.

Of course, that does not factor in any of the corporate income taxes paid by importers or producers, refiners and transporters (to the extent they are different entities), and retailers. I never see any discussion of local sales taxes figured in theses categories so I suspect they are not charged or are not charged uniformly.

Yep, just went back to the API chart and it appears that there are no sales taxes on either end of I-45, but other states do charge them (or some kind of other tax).

What? How about a tax break for those consumers in need?

LJ and I have been down this road before and my recollection is that the profit margin for big oil is about 9%. In gross dollars it always sounds huge, even obscene; it is much better to analyze by way of looking at the margins. If a farmer sell 50 bushels of corn to an ethanol refiner in 2006 for $250 and fifty more in 2007 for $500, what is wrong with that farmer earning $22 in profit the first year and $45 the next (assuming a 9% margin). As the price goes up the farmer should voluntarily decrease her margin out of some sense of fairness?

What about the farmer’s duty to her family? What does she do during the drought years which will surely come? This is Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream stuff... skinny cows eating sleek cows and blighted grain eating good grain...followed by seven years of a 50% tax rate.

Uh oh, just found a high-tax, anti-capitalist story in the Bible. I’ll just blame it on being in the Old Testament. Whose dreams are Snowe and Reed interpreting? And who’s enabling them to do it?

Do the federal or state governments reduce their "margins" because the price has increased? Why not do that for those consumers in need? Looks like in 2002 those consumers in need in Maine would save about $.419 per gallon of gasoline and those Rhode Island about $.494.

The companies’ duties are to their families...the shareholders. If they judge it a good idea to earn a little goodwill like Hugo Chavez did by offering a deal on heating oil to New Englanders, fine. BP has been running those green television spots for at least a couple of years now. Think that ad campaign’s being run to make the planet safer?

So the Senators know how to better spend that 9% than do the pension holders in the Ohio State Teachers Union? Better than me in my 70's when I’m trying to live off my 401k and what, the $1000 per month that Social Security will be able to send me?