Windfall Profits Tax To Do More Harm Than Good

I’ve been saying this since this whole mess about “excessive” oil profits started:

A little-publicized provision of the tax bill passed out of the Senate Finance Committee on Monday calls for a one-time $5 bill tax on big oil companies, disguised as a complicated inventory valuation methodology shift. Of course taxing oil companies is the last thing we need right now, when every incentive to discover and extract more oil counts more than ever. CNN/Money reports one Wall Street oil analyst notes, correctly, that “The tax code isn’t supposed to penalize investment. It’s supposed to encourage investment. And this tax “won’t lower gas prices even a penny.”

Read the whole thing. And then thank Senate Republicans for not killing this stupidity which, if passed, will only result in more tax burden for Americans and an increase in the price of as.
And if you’re a North Dakotan you can thank Senator Byron Dorgan who had a hand in coming up with this nonsense.