They have a unique business in that they know how much of something they are going to sell and for what price they can sell it at. Its the most predictable of all markets, people need gas and there is no way around that for most of us. The only real question is OPEC going to stifle or increase the supply? In either case oil companies can adjust production and gas prices accordingly. If they lose on the extraction of oil, they can make it back at the pump. But really, at what price do they lose on the extraction? $15/barrel? Their product has increased in value 5x and the cost of extraction has gone up how much in the same time frame? Oh yea, nothing. In fact, they are getting better at it all the time.

http://blog.tstc.org/2008/01/15/national-commis…

Did you ever read “Crisis in the Oil Patch” by Hodel? You'd have thought the book project was funded by Cheney. Hodel wanted oil subsidies and a guaranteed oil floor (minimum) price. (Obviously this was in a time of lower oil prices, a short period where Texas and Oklahoma were suffering. Out in LA we loved the cheap fuel and wanted it cheaper, of course.)

Even using this word when discussing the current tax rate is misuse of the word.

This is similar in intent to the real purpose of referring to “revenue neutrality” whenever tax reform is discussed. Revenue neutrality is useful as a gauge and sanity check of any proposed reform, but those who use the phrase, time after time, are doing it on the predication that revenue (much less, expenditures) “should” [sic] not, never, be decreased. (Anything that might cause a shrinkage in revenues or spending, in scope of government, these “revenue neutrality” demanders abhor. It's predictable, like their gross misuse of “fairness” when discussing tax policy or reform.)

Besides, once the Dem is in the White House taxes on motor vehicle fuels will be raised, probably substantially, anyway. We'll be told that we “should drive less” [sic; elitist, totalitarianism-wedded-to-PC-faddishness BS] or that the same fuel prices that are upsetting Americans are “far too low” or (as we've seen here with misuse of the word) “artificially” low (as if vastly greater European levels constitute normality; they do not).

Demand for gasoline is elastic to some extent, particularly for those who are on tight budgets. Normally people make budget changes elsewhere other than with their driving, but you get to a certain point and people take action. For the past several months, for example, before the cost of fuel was news-making, I had reduced trips taken and more importantly (being more general in nature), I have reduced my speed on the highway — it really does make a difference, especially with my (small) pickup truck. (No, we shouldn't repeat the federal 55 mph idiocy, even if I happen to now be running often at 55 or even 50 on highways and others certainly can, too.) My brother, who lives in Portland, choked with traffic in a metro area that doesn't often permit him to reach normal freeway speeds anyway, got rid of his larger-engined vehicle and gloats about the low costs of the fuel sipper little four-banger he got primarily as a daily driver. (He gets well over 40-45 MPG on the highway at highway speeds, too.) This is practical for many other people, but of course people shouldn't be forced to do this or be subject to PC-crap circus-animal-act social engineering games such as a feebate scheme or engine displacement or horsepower tax, etc..

And note that higher fuel taxes someday or other tax schemes that try to force or merely hector people to reduce driving (an insulting as well as elitist and worse idea) are fundamentally at cross purposes with any desire to raise as much vast new amounts of revenue as possible (on which the Dems will depend, of course).

And yea SuperD, the windfall tax is also a really bad idea. Lets just repeal the subsidies they are already getting.