Why not a windfall profits tax?

Why not a windfall profits tax? Instead of decreasing tax revenues with a "gas tax holiday" as McCain has suggested, why not impose a windfall profits tax on the excess net revenues the oil companies are receiving?

Today's WSJ shows quarterly net income (i.e., profit) for Shell of $9.08 billion. For BP it's $7.62 billion. Those profits are billions, not millions, for three months of income.

That's almost $17 billion of profit for just two companies, excluding ExxonMobil, in this quarter alone. At this rate, the combined profits of the industry for the year will exceed $100 billion. Even in rapidly decaying US dollars, that's a fuckload of money.

Surely some of that profit could be diverted to pay for the war that has caused to price of oil to skyrocket, thus rewarding oil executives quite handsomely for doing absolutely nothing — in direct contrast to American soldiers, who, as Dick Cheney has unkindly pointed out, are volunteers after all.

On the other hand, we the American taxpayers are not volunteers. Indiana's middle class is paying more for the war than the oil conglomerates. It is only fitting that BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil be harshly taxed to help pay for the war that makes them so fucking profitable.