I wonder how many TENS OF THOUSANDS of men and women share in those profits? That's something you'll never see reported by the Liberals, when you start splitting the take, it doesn't seem like a whole lot.

Its all Buuuussssshhhhhes and Chenayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyys fault! Impeach them now!

LOL - MoonBats are a bunch of uninformed idiots.

Put punitive taxes on oil companies, and prices go up. The oil companies still make their money and the government still gets tons of tax revenue, and everybody else gets screwed, and the economy takes a big hit.

How stupid can people be? It's not hard to figure out what will happen.

You might think that lowering taxes on oil might also bring down the price of gas. But faced with a choice between lowering oil taxes or not, the democrats will always choose to increase taxes (ie, 'theft').
For democrats, stealing from American companies is acceptable no matter how much strain it puts on a business, an industry or the consumer. But imagine the liberal squealing about stealing from Iraq were a republican to suggest that Maliki contract oil exports to the U.S. at below world-market values.

Wow, better hurry up with those windfall profits taxes before those greedy oil companies drain the economy dry! [/sarcasm] So when does Congress pass a windfall profits tax on itself?

Forest, you're right on the money. And if Congress imposes a "windfall profits" tax, what happens? Oil companies will have no reason for exploration or expansion of capacity, since any additional profit they make will be stolen by the gov't. The side effect is that demand continues to rise, supply continues to not rise, and prices climb higher and higher. The oil companies make even more profits (higher demand means higher sales), leading to more windfall taxes. This also, of course, presumes that the oil companies are stupid and are just going to stand there and take it. What will really happen is they will do everything they can to hide their gains and/or shove them into some tax-deferred/tax-free shelter.

KHarn, you also make an outstanding point. Those profits are shared by many thousands of shareholders, some of whom are EVIL RICH WHITE MEN (ohh nos!), and some of whom are average working men and women of all races and backgrounds. Some of whom are probably even - gasp - pension funds for union workers (Dem-O-Crat 4 Life, blood!). I wonder if the Dem powers-that-be have noticed that, 'cause I guarantee the unions have.

Don't kid yourself, the dems know how much money they are making off oil, that is why Pelosi won't allow a vote on drilling...there is no incentive.

Also, remember that the $33B big oil is paying in taxes is in addition to the tax you and I pay at the pump....obscene.

Even Bill O'Reilly is clueless on oil. Last night O'Reilly suggested to Carl Rove that oil companies reduce their profit 2%. Since oil companies make around 8 cents per gallon of gasoline (32 cents for $4.00 retail), reducing that by 2% would be around half a cent. Even reducing the $4.00 price 2% would save people 8 cents (this would cut their profit 25%). Who would notice that? Even if oil companies took zero profit on gasoline the price would still be $3.70/gallon - would that stop people from complaining? Nope. Then the Demodupes say they want to stop oil speculators? Too bad oil speculation occurs globally out of the reach of US law. And one sure way to screw speculators is announce large offshore areas are clear for drilling. Speculators would begin dumping futures contracts and the price of oil would crash.