Congress: Another Name for an Extortion Racket

In case anyone is wondering where the Mob went, I think we can say that it resides in Congress and the rest of government. Because oil profits are high for this quarter, a number of members of Congress are looking to tap into those profits by threatening punitive taxes and regulations. Sen. Byron Dorgan from North Dakota, a Democrat, calls for a new “windfall profits tax,” while (as Charles Featherstone already pointed out on this blog) the GOP simply wants to “force” oil companies to invest in more refineries and the like.Of course, if the companies don’t comply, supposedly even worse stuff awaits them. However, I think that this is nothing more than Congress introducing a number of “fetcher” bills that will enable the money from oil companies to flow into the Washington pipeline.

This is extortion, pure and simple. However, when Congress — or an unscrupulous ass like Elliot Spitzer from New York — do it, we call it “responsive politics.” I like the term “extortion” better.

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4:58 pm on October 25, 2005