Unencumbered Oil Profits: Nothing to See Here, Just Move Along

Oil companies are engaged in an orgy of money in which they claim to need their profits (from now $5 a gallon gas) for more exploration, yet their biggest expense increases went to buying back their own stocks. It's the height of circular self-investment. And the Republicans in Washington today not only terminated any chance of making them pay their fair share for everything from the Iraq War to the streets and roads that bolster their profits; they also killed Democratic initiatives that would have given Big Oil tax breaks to use their oil crisis windfall for alternative energy programs.

And yet, some would still bar anyone but the oil companies themselves from questioning the fairness of the obscene profits that they make without any proportional tax burden. And they would still raise red herrings in the naive faith that Big Oil needs no checks and balances to their supersized power and subsidized bank accounts.