That was fast.

Ken Silverstein at Harper's seems barely surprised by a story in the Houston Chronicle that passed with nary a twitter-- Obama has quietly announced that the windfall profits tax he proposed during the campaign will be shelved indefinitely. 

1) The economy is tanking, requests for bailouts are coming from all sectors, the budget deficit at about a trillion, and the national debt exceeds ten trillion. The market sheds hundreds of thousands of jobs a month, families are losing their homes, businesses are declaring bankruptcy every day. The Treasury needs cash now more than ever and a generous contribution from oil and gas companies wouldn't hurt. 

2) Silverstein notes that ExxonMobil, the largest corporation in the world, reaped the largest profit in history for US corporation last quarter-- $14.83 billion. It is perverse that American auto manufacturers expect a taxpayer funded billion-dollar bailout, when oil companies, the complicit enablers supplying the cheap gasoline for the public to fill up their SUV's, are posting record gains. The Big Three employ so many people that they are 'too big to fail' and need to restructure and it will be expensive. Why not take a chunk off the price tag with oil profits? I don't have the numbers to see how much revenue such a tax would generate, but as a populist political move, it would be shrewd-- and funny, in an ironic way. Kinda like appointing Gen. Shinseki as Veteran Affairs chief , the general who famously was fired after testifying to Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be necessary for an occupation of Iraq post-invasion. Wolfowitz (incorrectly) challenged Shinseki's figures as wildly off the mark, and Shinseki was fired. Obama's choice sends a clear signal about his own position on the wars, and the last 8 years in general