Excess Profits

There is talk now in Congress, even among Republicans, about how the oil companies are making too much money and we should somehow make them give some of it back in the form of excess profits taxes. I don't like paying over $0.69/gallon, but maybe we should get all the facts before jumping on the "give us our money back" bandwagon. Consider this fact from the Tax Foundation.

Federal and state taxes on gasoline production and imports have been climbing steadily since the late 1970s and now total roughly $58.4 billion. Due in part to substantial hikes in the federal gasoline excise tax in 1983, 1990, and 1993, annual tax revenues have continued to grow. Since 1977, governments collected more than $1.34 trillion, after adjusting for inflation, in gasoline tax revenues—more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period:

Read about it here.