Carville Calls For Taxing Windfall Profits From Oil Companies: Return that Money to Consumers
"And if anybody doesn't think that these oil companies are manipulating these prices to their advantage, I have no idea what to tell you because you're strictly naive,” veteran Democrat says
With American motorists paying record-high prices for fuel at the pump, a top Democratic strategist from the Clinton years is calling for the windfall profits which the big oil companies are reaping as a result, to be taxed.
With average prices for a gallon of gasoline exceeding $5 — and often even more in certain parts of the country — Americans are feeling the pain while major petroleum corporations are doing very well.
And it's high time some of that profit was returned to the pockets of low- and middle-class earners, according to James Carville, a fixture of Democratic politics going back to President Bill Clinton's first run for the White House in 1992.
“Yeah, I’m going to tell you who’s doing well. Exxon, Chevron, Shell, every oil company. There’s stories today about how much they’re selling stocks back that they’re worth. And if anybody doesn't think that these oil companies are manipulating these prices to their advantage, I have no idea what to tell you because you're strictly naive,” Carville said in an on-air interview with CNN. “The British parliaments, the Tories passed this, the Democrats in the House passed this, tax those windfall profits and return that money to consumers, in particular consumers that are making under $100,000 a year. And they can do that.
“And there's not a single person in the United States that doesn't think that these prices are being manipulated by these oil companies,” he added. “Now I'm sure [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin is somewhat to blame, but believe you me, they're riding that and the Democrats have got to show that they really understand what's going on in this economy. A lot of this is being manipulated for the purpose of profit. That's what's really happening here.”
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