Are these people insane? With oil prices as high as they are and food prices shooting up because of transportation costs, they want to raise prices even more by taxing oil companies? Do they actually think that the oil companies won’t just pass that cost on to the consumer?

With gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon, Senate Democrats want the government to grab some of the billions of dollars in profits being taken in by the major oil companies.
Senators were to vote Tuesday on whether to consider a windfall profits tax against the five largest U.S. oil companies and rescind $17 billion in tax breaks the companies expect to enjoy over the next decade.
“The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy,” said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, warning that if energy prices are not reined in “we’re going to find ourselves in a deep recession.”

How the heck does Durbin think taxing the profits of the oil company is going to rein in energy prices? How does it do anything but raise prices by giving the government a cut of the profits? When will these people learn from history?

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the major oil companies, has been reminding lawmakers that in the early 1980s, when the government imposed windfall profits taxes on oil companies domestic oil production dropped and imports increased.

If it weren’t for the Democrats, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now. If they had not fought drilling in ANWR and offshore, we would have a supply of domestic oil and the price would be much lower.
And then there’s this bit of silliness:

Authorize the Justice Department to bring charges of price fixing against countries that belong to the OPEC oil cartel.

What law are they violating? In what court of law will they bring these charges? How are our laws binding on them? Talk about imperialism! So, all you BushHitler people, what do you say about this bit of overreach?
But they actually have an excellent idea in the bill that would probably end some of the speculation:

Require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets to curb speculation.

Too bad it’s part of this mess of a bill that won’t get to a vote.
An interpretation of this post from the Reformed perspective:
It would be nice if our leaders were wise, wouldn’t it? Who understood how the economy worked and wouldn’t try to over correct when there is a downturn. They usually wind up doing more harm than good.
How is this thought Reformed? I believe that wisdom has been undervalued by not only the secular community but the Christian community as well. Christians believe that if we are to do something, then we need biblical proof to do it. But the Bible doesn’t give us detailed instructions for anything. Take worship, how are we to worship the Lord Sunday morning? How about baptism? Where does it give us detailed instructions on who to baptize and how to do it?
Wisdom, not proof texts is the way that we should be governing our lives. How do we gain this wisdom? Through the study of the general principles of the Bible and then living our lives in the knowledge of those principles. That’s how God expected Israel to live in the promised land. He gave them some examples of civil law but he didn’t cover every situation, that’s why they had judges to help interpret the law that fit the dispute before them.

But what does any of this have to do with the Senate? Well, a Christian guided by wisdom should understand when their Senators are lacking wisdom and should bring it to their attention. Ignoring how the economy works, ignoring history, ignoring the consequences of their actions is not very wise and will lead to real hardship felt by those who can least afford higher prices, the poor. I can afford gas at this price (just barely) but there are many who cannot. Love for our neighbor alone should cause us to demand that Congress open up drilling in any area that they can find so that we can drive down the futures market to a more reasonable price and not burden the oil company with taxes that they will just pass on to those who can least afford to pay them.