I see in today’s “Inside Politics” column in the Washington Times that size is no excuse to Barack Obama, who ”complained that Exxon Mobil Corp. makes too much money and should be forced to give some of that profit to the government.” Yeah, the poor government. More on that in a moment.
Specifically, he bemoaned how “The other day we learned that Exxon Mobil made nearly $12 billion last quarter. . . . To put it another way, they made $1,500 every second. That’s more than $300,000 in the time it takes you to fill up a tank of gas.” [To which CEO Rex Tillerson noted in response that the company “paid $4,000 a second in taxes, and (ExxonMobil) spent $15,000 a second in costs.”]
Alright sir. The numbers also indicate that the government — which unlike ExxonMobil relies pretty exclusively on Americans for its take — is reaping about $2.54 trillion in revenue this year. To put it another way, they take in 80,489 every second. That’s more than $16 million bucks in the time it takes you to fill up your gas tank . . . or, ahem, $12,927,771,692 — hey’ there’s that $12 billion again! — in the time it takes the average American to complete their tax return.
Obama may actually be onto something here. That should be returned to taxpayers. We know that the government, unlike Big Oil, isn’t going to bring much energy to market to fuel the economy. So let’s, just for now, take our money back, at least until the government stops standing in the way of others doing so.