Democrat Commissars Want a “Reasonable Profits Board”

Six House Democrats (pronounced “commissars”), led by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), want to set up a “Reasonable Profits Board” to control oil and gas profits.

 

Joining the diminutive Kucinich as co-commissars are House members John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Bob Filner (D-CA), Marcia Fudge (D-OH), Jim Langevin (D-RI), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

 

The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a “windfall profit tax” as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.

 

The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding “a reasonable profit.” It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential (shouldn’t that be czar?) nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.

 

The bill would also seem to exclude industry representatives from the board, as it says members “shall have no financial interests in any of the businesses for which reasonable profits are determined by the Board.”

 

 

The bill does not estimate the amount of money that might be collected through the tax or what collective will be the recipient of these funds. Perhaps it will just be a kind of semi-Robin Hood board that steals from the rich and then keeps the money.

 

Folks, we are much closer to the abyss than you think.

 

***Ed Randazzo, is a nationally syndicated author. He has been a conservative activist and consultant for over 30 years and is currently the Chief News Editor of Life and Liberty Media***