Bush Rejects Windfall Tax on Oil Profits

[phantom power]

Short version: We need to allow oil companies to reinvest their windfall profits to get more oil (graph 2). But we need to get off oil (graph 4). But the real problem is that we don't have enough refineries (graph 5).

President Bush on Friday rejected calls by some lawmakers for a tax on oil company windfall profits, saying the industry should reinvest its recent gains into finding and producing more energy.

"The temptation in Washington is to tax everything," Bush said in an exchange with reporters in the White House Rose Garden. "The answer is for there to be strong reinvestment to make this country more secure from an energy perspective."

With gasoline at over $3 a gallon in some areas, Bush said there was "no evidence" of price-gouging of consumers.

(...)

"That's what the American people expect. They also expect to be treated fairly at the pump," he said. "These oil prices are a wake-up call. We're dependent on oil. We need to get off oil."

(...)

On surging oil prices and energy-industry profits, Bush said it was "important for the people to understand that one of the reasons why the price of gasoline is up is, there's tight gasoline supplies. And one reason there's tight gasoline supplies is, we haven't built any new refineries since the 1970s."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060428/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush;_ylt=AkL1LLpvhDQy5CXVP_Ru7vis0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

[texastoast]

1. Here is how they are reinvesting their profits

One of my friends works for a major mid-sized player.

They sent her and 47 of her closest working associates to Hawaii for a two-week "seminar" in March.

:rofl:

There's shrubbie. Taking care of some of the underlings in his "base."

[subterranean]

2. Bush's plan: reduce oil dependence by building more refineries

Bush says, "we're dependent on oil. We need to get off oil."

Then he turns around and says, "we need to build more oil refineries."

Am I the only one who's confused?

[louis-t]

3. "no evidence" of price-gouging

You expected anything else? Of course, he's been workin hard trying to find evidence of gouging. Stupid-ass forgets to tell you that smaller refineries were purposely run out of business by larger ones.