http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/205085-dems-propose-reasonable-profits-board-to-regulate-oil-company-profits
My first question, why should any one person or group get to decide what a 'reasonable profit' for any other person or group is? The only times that applies would be...tax payers deciding what politicians should make, or church members deciding what their pastor(s) should make.
This is a very frightening scenario:
The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a "windfall profit tax" as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what a reasonable profit is.They want to be able to tax 100% of the profit above a certain amount. Arbitrarily determining what is appropriate for a company to make.
Imagine you're in a business yourself for a moment.
If you are going to be taxed 100% of your profit above a certain point, would you be likely to lower your prices, or change your reporting and how you determine what profit is?
Another stance to take with this: If profit is limited, won't that lead to less R & D, and therefore fewer advancements in the industry, leading to stagnation, and job loss, as well as higher prices over all?
As Quinn likes to say, "Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it's stated intent."
I would not be surprised in the least to see the result of something like this leading to higher prices at the pump. This should be discouraged in the strongest language possible. Contact your reps today!
"why should any one person or group get to decide what a 'reasonable profit' for any other person or group is? The only times that applies would be...tax payers deciding what politicians should make, or church members deciding what their pastor(s) should make. "
ReplyDeleteI would add state regulated monopolies, like utility companies. My power company has no competition whatsoever, because anyone living within their service area can only connect to their system. The infrastructure simply doesn't currently exist to allow competition, so the state regulates their prices and how much profit they are allowed.
"If you are going to be taxed 100% of your profit above a certain point, would you be likely to lower your prices, or change your reporting and how you determine what profit is?"
I'd scale back so that I rarely if ever exceeded that profit limit by more than a negligible amount. There wouldn't be any point in producing more.