Rethugs are against any oil company windfall profits tax. Alaska already has one for its taxpayers

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2524150.html

Companies Generates Wealth, Controversy

Sunday, August 17, 2008 5:54 PM

Symbols: COP

(Source: Sunday Gazette - Mail; Charleston, W.V.)By Angel Gonzalez and Hal Bernton

SEATTLE - Republicans in Congress this June united to defeat a proposed windfall tax on oil companies, deriding it as a bad idea that would discourage investment in U.S. oil exploration.

Things worked out far differently in the GOP stronghold of Alaska, a state whose economic fate is closely tied to the oil industry. Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska's Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry - a step that has generated stunning new wealth for the state as oil prices soared.

At a time when Americans are feeling the pinch at the gasoline pump and oil companies are racking up record profits, Alaska's choice foreshadows one of the sharpest debates in the upcoming presidential election.

Democrat Barack Obama supports a national windfall-profits tax, while Republican John McCain opposes it.

Alaska collected an estimated $6 billion from the new tax during the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Association. That helped push the state's total oil revenue - from new and existing taxes, as well as royalties - to more than $10 billion, double the amount received last year.

While many other states are confronting big budget deficits because of the troubled economy, Alaska officials are in the enviable position of exploring new ways to spend the state's multibillion-dollar budget surplus.


The oil companies wat to start drilling all over our country now so where is our cut? Seems to have worked out real good in Alaska so why don't we try it here on the mainland where they want to drill off our shores?

[eshfemme]

1. Yes, I don't get how the GOP can claim Palin knows her energy policy

when all she knows is drilling, drilling and more drilling and also implements the very windfall profit that the GOP has bitterly complained about when it's proposed by Obama. It's so fucking stupid. I can never get my mind around the hypocrisy.

[TahitiNut]

2. $6 billion in a state with about 600,000 people? Isn't that about $10,000 per person?

:wow:

[aquart]

3. Handy.