Four Congressional Democrats to Oil and Gas Industries: Drop Dead

Ira Stoll’s brilliant blog, FutureOfCapitalism.com reports one of the most anti-capitalist, pro-stupid proposals in recent memory today, in which four House Democrats have taken it upon themselves to propose to the president a “Reasonable Profits Board” for the oil and gas industries, and they further propose a 50% to 100% tax on any profits above what the fatuous “Reasonable Profits Board” decides are…reasonable.  As Stoll writes

This legislation doesn’t look like it’s moving anywhere at the moment (two of the original six co-sponsors have withdrawn their support), but it’s newsworthy as an illumination of how certain elements — Congressmen John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, Bob Filner, Lynn Woolsey — on the left think.

This is beyond “the left.”  It wanders aimlessly and cluelessly into the world of Soviet economics — an oxymoron. The Soviet Union’s economic system imploded with the Soviet Union itself. Five-year plans, fulfilling government-ordered quotas, ignoring extraneous elements of an economy such as supply and demand — all this and more sunk the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics in 1991.

How stupid can four Democrats be? This stupid.

And why confine the “Reasonable Profits Board”‘s purview  to oil and gas?  What about the manufacturing and housing industries? Steel and metals? What about media companies and children’s toy companies?  Why exempt publishing companies and telephone companies and hospitals?

As Emily Litella might ask, “What’s this I hear about communism?”  If the four Democrats have their way, we’ll be on the road to a controlled economy with Washington telling private industries across the board how high their profits may rise and taxing them mercilessly if they dare make one extra dollar.

What exactly about capitalism is so repugnant to President Obama and his minions in the House and Senate?  It’s one thing not to know much about geography and history but to seek to play so extravagantly fast and loose with the basics of a capitalist economy is really, really stupid.