Friday, January 20, 2012

Nothing Reasonable About It

Dems propose Reasonable Profits Board:

Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to control gas profits.

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 constitutes a reasonable profit.

The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding "a reasonable profit." It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.


If the idea of a "Reasonable Profits Boards" run by unelected government bureaucrats doesn't make you recoil in horror, you must be ingnorant of the long history of such previous efforts by the state to dictate economic activities. But don't you dare call this socialism. 'Cause then, YOU would be the extremist.