Pete Domenici: “Let's look at what we voted on yesterday. The Democrats sought to increase taxes on American business competing with…”

“Let's look at what we voted on yesterday. The Democrats sought to increase taxes on American business competing with foreign nations for a global commodity. They tell us this tax is the solution because the oil companies are making too much money. These new taxes will not lower prices, and they know it. What raising taxes on American companies would do is to ship the competitive business advantage to foreign oil companies. Raising taxes on American companies and not on their competitors costs American jobs. Raising taxes on American companies increases imports and lowers American energy production. This is not only my analysis, it is the analysis of the independent Congressional Research Service. It is the analysis of the Wall Street Journal and the analysis of officials from the Carter and Clinton administrations, who had experience with the windfall profits tax, which had a pretty-sounding name and a terrible-sounding effect, for it rumbled through the country causing oil companies to pay higher taxes, thus raising costs of oil and lowering the amount that was produced. So we are told by a consensus of our greatest experts that such a time is decades off. I have spoken with those who know about our needs. They say we need a bridge to secure our energy future--a bridge. On the far side of the bridge is America, where we are no longer dependent on these vast amounts of crude oil.”