Obama: Big Oil should send stimulus checks

Be afraid, be very afraid:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an “Emergency Economic Plan” that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded in part by what his presidential campaign calls “windfall profits from Big Oil.”

Details are in this six-page policy paper.

The first part of Obama’s plan is an emergency energy rebate ($500 to individual workers, $1,000 to families) as soon as this fall.

“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said. “Or, if you live in a state where it gets very cold in the winter, it will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills or even to pay down debt.

Someone ought to enlighten our Enlightened One:

Almost 43 percent of oil and natural gas company shares are owned by mutual funds and asset management companies that have mutual funds. Mutual funds manage accounts for 55 million U.S. households with a median income of $68,700.

Twenty seven percent of shares are owned by other institutional investors like pension funds. In 2004, more than 2,600 pension funds run by federal, state and local governments held almost $64 billion in shares of U.S. oil and natural gas companies. These funds represent the major retirement security for the nation’s current and retired soldiers, teachers, and police and fire personnel at every level of government.

Fourteen percent of shares are held in IRA and other personal retirement accounts. Forty five million U.S. households have IRA and other personal retirement accounts, with an average account value of just over $22,000.

Fourteen percent of shares are owned by individual investors who purchase stocks on the open market.

1.5% of shares are owned by corporate insiders – company executives and CEO’s.

As you can see, taxing profits will only take money from your pension, retirement account, mutual fund or stock earnings; a plan which simply takes your wealth away from you and transfers it to government bureaucrats with no promise of lower prices at the pump.

So instead of taxing profits just what can we do to make the prices come down to reasonable levels that we all can afford? Increase supply. Increasing the supply of energy sources is the only way to make the price go down in any meaningful and real way.

So... if I read this right, The One, The Obamessiah, is asking us to send ourselves a check as a stimulus package.

Brilliant.

Comments

[Mommynator]

Someone posted this on a forum where I hang out and of course, the anti-Bush vitriol just dripped with his question - Didn't Bush already do this?

Of course, I saw red and pointed out to him that the major difference is that Bush sent us our own money back, stolen by the government.

Obama wants to make private corporations, invested in by private persons and others, pay us - i.e., stealing money from legal entities to somehow make life easier for us.

Theft, in other words.

Whereas Bush mitigated government theft.

Major difference between conservative and flaming liberal.

[Melissa]

Does all the profit return to the private investor, then? My pension funds are invested in Wachovia in a mutual account, much to my dismay (lol), and I see very little profit. Now my own money, which is invested in a credit union which does small business loans, earns very good interest.
But if in the course of this presidential campaign we all become more knowledgeable about finance we will be blessed.

[Wayne]

What troubles me is we do have needy who are completely being ignored. Obama is no robinhood; Robinhood took from greedy tax collectors and returned the money to the people.

I've linked to your post from Jeremiah Films: Looking at Obama's doctrine of taking from the rich as article content.

The solution for poverty is charity example

[Locutisprime]

Socialism 101 plain and simple folks. Anyone that can't see that is stupid.