<strong>Why &#8220;Windfall Taxes&#8221; Are a Bad Idea:</strong><br/><br/>1. It&#8217;s subjective. What is a &#8220;windfall&#8221;? How much is &#8220;too much&#8221;? Who decides? Politicians? Voters? The courts? If someone makes &#8220;too little&#8221; for the work they&#8217;ve done, is the Government going to give money back to them?<br/><br/>2. It&#8217;s retroactive. If you are going to subject someone to a tax, you should be told about it up front. Otherwise, it&#8217;s nothing more than a taking.<br/><br/>3. It&#8217;s un-American. The whole idea behind a Free Market, Capitalistic system, is that people are encouraged to produce, and compete, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. If you work hard, and you make a lot of money, and the Government can come back at any time and take your profits as a &#8220;windfall&#8221;, it&#8217;s going to reduce incentive to be productive, profitable, competitive.<br/><br/>4. It&#8217;s counter-productive. High oil prices, for example, are likely a good thing in some respects, because they are going to encourage conservation and investment into alternative energy sources and/or more efficient forms of storage and use.<br/><br/>5. I want Shell to continue to use their profits to sponsor the Jazz Fest.<br/><br/><br/><strong>On the other hand:</strong><br/><br/>There is absolutely no reason that we should be <em>subsidizing</em> the profits of an industry that is already making $100 billion dollars a year. Why should taxpayers be forced to make their coffers even bigger through tax breaks, tax credits, or subsidies? (ConocoPhillips alone reaped $106 million last year from 2004 breaks which could be worth $10 billion to the industry over the next decade.) If we are going to pay for investments in refineries, or alternative fuel sources, or other advances, we should get the benefits. When you talk about the State &#8220;owning&#8221; property, all the free market people kick and scream about &#8220;socialism&#8221; and &#8220;communism&#8221; and all that stuff. But what we have is arguably worse. Because at least they ostensibly get what they pay for. Here, we pay for something that ends up being owned by somebody else.<br/><br/>I would also suggest, on this note, that the Auto Industry, for example, is largely a victim of its own success. They lobbied and leaned on Washington for years to avoid making cars that were safer and more fuel efficient. If the Government had made them make their cars better, not only would it have promoted environmental protection and public safety, but they could probably compete better with the foreign companies, and maybe they wouldn&#8217;t be in the position they are in today.<br/><br/><br/><br/><small>[Note - The views expressed on this political blog and legal blog on corporate welfare, windfall taxes, trickle-down or supply-side economics, Big Oil, and tort reform are the personal views of Steve Herman and are not intended to represent the views of Herman Herman Katz &amp; Cotlar, LTLA, TLPJ, the Civil Justice Foundation, or any other organization.]</small>