It’s not their %!*#*)$ money!!!!

I get pretty ticked off when I hear about schemes like Barack Obama’s “emergency” economic plan:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”
Details are in this six-page policy paper. The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall.
“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said. “Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold in the winter, it will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills or even to pay down debt.

Working families? I work, but somehow don’t think I will be included in that group. This is the worst kind of pandering, and it is being financed in classic liberal fashion using faulty economic assumptions. This quote will demonstrate what I mean:

Friday’s proposal says Obama “is proposing to offset the cost of his emergency energy rebates over the next five years by enacting a windfall profits tax on big oil companies.”
“Obama simply asks that big oil companies contribute a reasonable share of the windfall profits they receive from high oil prices over the next five years to pay for emergency assistance for families right now,” the campaign says.

“Over the next five years” assumes a great deal. It fails to take into account the impact that this very tax will have on profits. It assumes continued strength in the oil sector that is far from guaranteed. It targets a specific industry due to some kind of dubious moral judgement as to what kind of profits are reasonable.

This is a VIOLATION of sound economic principles, and if I may be so bold, it is a violation of the property rights of shareholders of oil companies. Oil companies pay their taxes and then beyond that the money pertains to them and their shareholders. How much profit is reasonable?

ALL OF IT!