Saturday, February 03, 2007

The 2008 Socialist Party candidate

Looks like Hillary is at it again with her socialist rhetoric. The scoop goes to Larry Kudlow, and you can read what he has to say about it here.

Wake up, Dems: this isn't Venezuela.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hillary is exactly right. We need more strategic investment from government to support research into alternative energies. A tax on petroleum consumption would generate money for that and reduce domestic demand. It may be true that Exxon's profit margin's are not that high but it doesn't change the fact that we consume too much oil and are too dependent on foreign sources for its provision. Hillary did not propose nationalization of the oil industries so your comparisons to Venezuela don't make any sense. But I suppose that demonizing your enemy doesn’t require any basis in reality as Bush showed is with Iraq. Standard GOP.

Matthew said...

If one is to accept the premise that we consume too much oil and are too dependent on foreign sources for it, then how does taxing Exxon Mobile help to solve that? This is not a tax on petroleum as you suggested; this is a tax on a business that happens to be profitable. It goes against the entire premise of capitalism! If you're an investor, you're taking a risk. If you invest in a company, you may lose money; many do. However, if you do your due diligence you may pick a winner. Now the government lead by the socialist Clinton is going to punish your success and take your profits from you? If I lose money investing, will the government subsidize me? Hell no! However, if I make a profit, she plans steal it from me? What kind of message does that say to investors who want to put their dollars into energy companies?

If you want to reduce dependence on oil, then tax oil. Taxing companies like Exxon does nothing to reduce domestic demand, to cause people to drive hybrids over SUVs, or to carpool. Taxing oil companies is simply the kind of anti-capitalist propaganda that the entire democratic party is spewing these days.

Furthermore, it's not much of a slippery slope to go from attacking companies by "taking their profits" to the nationalization of them. It is happening right now in other parts of the world. When we start to allow government to steal property from people simply because they are successful, the road to serfdom begins. Change happens on the margin.

Anonymous said...

http://www.truemajority.com/oreos/

A little redistribution for you money hogs.

Matthew said...

It is, after all, quite easy to spend other people's money.