And the gap closes

It seems that the GOP is doing its best to close the gap on the "liberal" boogieman. Here Specter has the brilliant plan of "windfall" taxation on the oil companies. Brilliant move. Historically, a great strategy is to mimic the failures of those you defeat. "Hey, someones successful, lets punish them!" What the oil companies have found out is that they can charge more for their product, and they are. What is now happening is that OPEC has realized that they are undercharging for their product, so they are also adjusting their prices upwards. At some point the consumer will react and/or a substitute will evolve.

What is clear, is that maybe we can actually shrink goverment spending by cutting the billions in oil company subsidies that we currently spend to help these fledgeling, helpless businesses. Seriously, if there's one place to help the budget its in cutting the subsidies. Everyone wins. Spending goes down, corporate taxes do not go up, everyone gets what they want.

Other highlights from the article...
He laments industry consolodation. Proving his economic acumen he now realizes that decreasing competition leads to less price competition. On an intersting side note, breaking the companies up will become a topic of discussion. I'm generally against this type of action, but the barriers to entry are so high that its difficult for a normal free market solution to work. Meaning, if the oil companies keep prices high, new competition will likely not develop to take advantage of the high profit margins. However, substitution can still occur. So stay tuned.

Dem Levin plays a very weak "heads I win, tails you lose" card. He says it would be helpful if Bush called the oil execs in for a talk. Then says Bush would never do that. Then, and here's the kicker, says even if Bush did do what he says he wouldn't, it still wouldn't matter because Bush would chit-chat and not deliver any real message. See there's no way for Bush to win. If he calls them in as Levin wants and it works, it was Levins idea. If Bush calls them in and it doesn't work, it's because Bush went all gushy on them. If Bush doesn't call them in, then Bush is soft on his oil buddies. But it doesn't really matter because no one pays attention to Levin anyway.