Oil Profits Go Up and Down, Gas Taxes Only GO UP!

Source: The Tax Foundation, based on Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

Taxes on gasoline are rising much higher than oil industry profits. Yet, Democrats are out there telling the willfully ill-informed that big oil is ripping them off and we need MORE TAXES.

If you didn't hear the Neil Cavuto (Fox News of course) interview with Senator Dick Durtbag, the video is here.

Here's the transcript from an illuminating excerpt:

CAVUTO: Senator, do you know how much, out of curiosity, is built into a gallon of gasoline, the profits of the oil companies? Do you know what's the average?

DURBIN: Well, let me see. ExxonMobil, what did they make in three months? It was $10 billion, if I'm not mistaken, the largest corporate profits in the history of the United States.

CAVUTO: Maybe you could answer my question. It's about 9 cents. Do you know how much taxes are, Senator? About 50 cents.

DURBIN: Let me tell you....

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: So, don't you think you should be more focused on the tax-gouging than necessarily the profit-gouging?

DURBIN: How do you explain their profits after taxes? You're ignoring that, Neil. You don't want to talk about it.

CAVUTO: Are you ignoring the taxes? Senator, I'm asking you simply, are you ignoring the taxes? Would you roll back those taxes?

DURBIN: No. I'm telling you the taxes pay for the roads that we use.

CAVUTO: Would you roll back those taxes?

DURBIN: No.

Let me tell you, you look at the traffic congestion in America and the need for mass transit, you want to cut the source of funding to deal with that congestion? You're wrong. We have got to have taxation of users of our roads, in order to keep them safe and to keep them modern and to build mass transit.

Neil, you can't walk away from that.

CAVUTO: So, $50 cents a gallon, the taxes are OK? The 9 cent profit, that's not OK?

Sooo... 9 cents for profit to oil companies to do all the work for finding oil, bringing it to market and Durbin wants even more and more in taxes to build roads. You could pave the entire planet with the amount the federal government has collected for "roads" with gas taxes. And yet, it's never enough.