Pelosi's Plan to Tank the U.S. Economy

I fear the House Speaker is only playing politics with the non-thinking public's "gut" reaction to Big Oil's profits.

Pelosi targets oil firms in energy push

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Defying a threat of a presidential veto, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intends to push ahead with a $21 billion tax package, including repeal of tax breaks for major oil companies, as part of an energy bill, aides to the speaker said Tuesday.

Democratic leaders circulated a summary of the legislation that includes the new taxes as well as a requirement for a 40 percent increase in automobile fuel efficiency, a huge increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel, and a mandate for utilities to use renewable fuels.

Republicans earlier this year blocked Senate attempts to pass new energy taxes, contending they would hinder domestic oil and gas production. Democratic supporters of the taxes said...(complete article here).

Several issues here -- oil companies need profits in order to explore for and develop new energy sources -- including renewable sources such as ethanol. As for ethanol -- we are unable today to handle it logistically. We don't have the infrastructure in place. I think we will see numerous ethanol start-ups for sale in the coming months. Who do you think will buy them? My bet is it will be the oil companies. Taxing the oil companies more will only hurt consumers. The taxes will be passed on to the ultimate users. Taxing businesses is only a creative form of taxation on consumers. I guess that in a way that would encourage conservation because the consumers would have less money to spend on gasoline, or heating oil, or electricity, or food -- which brings us back to ethanol....