A Republican blog to suport John Edwards' candidacy for President has launched. The blog has posts about Edwards' visit to NY for Martin Luther King day, his position in the minimum wake hike that just passed the House this week by a veto-proof margin (meaning lots of conservatives voted for it), and a message we should all be sending to our representatives in Congress: no funding for escalation.
An editorial in the Stanford Review says that Edwards should think twice before supporting new taxes on Big Oil to support his platform of eliminating poverty in America, pointing to California prop-87 as an example why. Unfortunately for its readers, the staff writer doesn't even take the time to tell people what prop-87 is or or where you can find out more information, which makes the entire argument questionable at best. Citing something that supports your argument without explaining where or what it is -- in fact giving no information about it at all -- is a well treaded fallacy that allows you to make an argument, claim that something supports it, and then move on without as if you've been vidicated in some way.
That just doesn't cut it for me, so I looked into prop-87, and here is what I found.
Proposition 87 was a ballot initiative that would have increased taxes on oil producers within the state in order to fund programs that would reduce energy depdenance on oil, and increase use of alternative energy sources, at a cost of about $4 billion. According to Wikipedia, the proposition had strong backing from politico's who are known to be pro-environment, such as former President Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Barak Obama, and Jack O'Connell.
Accordingly, "Most of the "No on 87" campaign was funded by petroleum companies, more than $95,000,000 in contributions was received for the No on 87 Campaign, Chevron Corporation ($30,000,000) and Aera Energy ($27,000,000), more than any other proposition in history. The majority of the remaining contributors opposed to 87 were other oil production companies."
The measure was voted down by the public, sadly, but that doesn't mean it was wrong. Big Oil has been enjoying disgustingly large windfalls over the past few years, such that California's measure that would have cost them $4 billion only amounted to 40% of the profits of Exxon Mobil in 2005, when Exxon set the world record for largest corporate profit ever.
If prop-87's failure is the evidence the author suggests it is, I'd be more than comfortable with Edwards taking his chances by running on such a platform. Exxon made $9.9 billion in profit in 2005, I think they can afford this one.
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Anonymous
January 04, 2008 10:58 AM
I am not sure what the minimum wake hike is. I assume that you meant wage. But, your typos are merely a reflection on your attention or lack thereof to detail. The $9 billion in profit is on about $370 billion in sales for 2005. Which is less than 2.5% profit. I would hardly call that obscene. By your reasoning they should lose 40% of that so then they would only realize 1.25% profit. They may as well put their money in a mattress and fire all of their employees. Or in the interest of shareholders, invest in a Chinese oil company. Perhaps Edwards should sue "Big Water" for gouging consumers $8/gallon for bottled water that comes out of the ground a lot more easily than the oil from which gasoline is made.
How much in "obscene profits" did "Big Law" (including candidate Edwards) make without creating anything of value and except the millions of pounds of paper and dead trees used to file legal briefs?
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