Add H.R.6 to the list of popular, and ineffective legislation that is a product of our campaign cycle. Put it next to H.R.509, which does in fact raise the minimum wage. However it does not accomplish the popular idea of helping the poor, since the large majority of poor people either don’t work or are not the bread winners.

As for H.R.6, start here.

To begin with, the underlying assumption that the domestic oil and gas sector is currently undertaxed may have been popular campaign rhetoric, but it is not supported by the evidence. According to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA), total income taxes paid by this sector reached a record $71 billion in 2005, the last year for which complete data is available. This is up from $48 billion in 2004 and $32 billion in 2003. Revenues from other taxes on the oil and gas sector are also up. Overall, taxes have risen along with oil company profits. By many measures, energy companies face tax rates comparable to or higher than those of other industrial sectors.

So let’s get this straight. In order to get the country off of foreign oil, the idea is to increase the taxes on the oil industry, and in doing so limit their ability to invest in their own market, and put the extra cash into an alternative fuel program run by the Fed. Prior history supports this how? Add to that the fact that decreased future investment in things like additional off-shore exploration and refinery capacity will actually decrease our domestic supply. Given America’s proven ability to conserve energy, where do we think the gap in supply is going to come from?

According to the Congressional Research Service, “The WPT reduced domestic oil production from between 3 and 6 percent, and increased oil imports from between 8 and 16 percent.”

Don’t like the Heritage Foundation? Fine. Let’s head over here.

2. A significant part of ExxonMobil's profit increases have resulted from year-by-year increases in operating efficiency. Worldwide sales increased 72% from 2001 to 2005, while the total number of worldwide employees dropped from 98,000 to 84,000. Additionally, ExxonMobil has the industry's largest and most highly integrated refineries, which has made it more efficient than most other major oil companies

The profits big oil is taking now are built on investments made in the past. Period. What is most notable is the fact the the oil industry is NOT the most profitable across the country, not by a long shot.

Over the past decade, ExxonMobil's net income as a percentage of sales has averaged a relatively modest 7.3%, with the high point in 2005 at 10%. This pales in comparison to the operating leverage of Microsoft, where software development costs are analogous to oil companies' fixed costs, and duplicating and distribution costs are a small fraction of sales prices. Microsoft's net income to sales has not been less than 25% in the past decade and has gone as high as 41%.

My quick math leads me to conclude that it would more advantageous to slap a WPT on Microsoft, rather than big oil. And hey, it’s the least Bill Gates can do, since he makes so much cash on such crappy products.

But hey, we all want to feel like we are doing something, right?