Comparisons

Cap'n Ed today, in a post on the Senate's latest defeat of conservative efforts to ban "earmarks" (i.e. pork barrel spending amendments), cited as an example of such brazenly profligate waste the $200 million bailout of Northrup Grumman for indemnifyng the defense contractor against losses that its insurers refuse to cover that Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochrane of Mississippi masterminded recently - this despite the fact that N-G posted a 7.1% net profit last year even with this $200 million hit.

I cite Ed's citation because of the devastating addendum he added to his post:

Congress has a rather narrow view of profit in a free-market society. When ExxonMobil makes 10.7% profit, they decry the "windfall profit" of a corporation. When Northrup Grumman makes 7.1%, they qualify for a bailout.

Swung on and belted, goodbye baseball.

Want another fun comparison? Try this one on for size:

While the media continues to blame the big oil companies for gouging U.S. motorists as they collect record breaking profits, the windfall profits raked in by the government in the form of energy tax revenue actually dwarf the oil companies' jackpot.

The press sounded the alarm last year when the largest U.S. oil company, ExxonMobil Corp, announced profits of $36 billion. But according to the Tax Foundation, the biggest price gouging profiteer was the U.S. government, cashing in to the tune of $54 billion in oil and gas taxes.

"Tax collections on the production and import of gasoline by state and federal governments are already near historic highs," the think tank says. "In fact, in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits."

Since 1977, federal and state governments have collected more than $1.34 trillion in gasoline tax revenues in inflation adjusted dollars. That's "more than twice the amount of domestic profits earned by major U.S. oil companies during the same period," the Tax Foundation says.

And yet which senator was the first to come within a parsec of following Tom Nugent's advice? Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey, while Republicans were posturing about soaking "Big Oil".

That's where the comparisons stop being so much fun.