Call me a thief. I am about to steal stuff from an editorial in Investors Business Daily. But the theft is for a good cause. It is to reveal a bunch of politicians as demagogues.

When it comes to oil companies, the pols love to stir resentment among voters. Rep. Ed Markey tells us “oil companies are turning the American consumer upside down at the pump, shaking out every last cent.” This is a lie and he knows it.

He calls Exxon-Mobil profits “outlandish.” Rep. Maurice Hinchey calls such profits “obscene” and claims the company has “crossed the moral threshold”. Senator Clinton tells us oil company profits are so evil she wants to seize them.

These pols have lots of company in Congress when it comes to screaming about oil company profits.

IBD reminds us plenty of bobbing heads and columnists and think-tank guys parrot the politicians insults. And they are insults. And they spew from the mouths of demagogues.

I don’t bandy that term lightly. Look it up. When you have finished this piece I bet you will agree with me.

From 1977 to 2004 U.S. oil companies made $630 billion profit. Before they got to that bottom line they paid $518 billion in federal and state corporate taxes.

Now, who is ripping off whom?

These companies invest fortunes to search for oil. To find it, to drill for it. To refine it and deliver it. They take unbelievably huge risks. They made $630 billion profit for their efforts.

Meanwhile, thanks to pols like those above, government hit them with $518 billion taxes. Government that did virtually nothing to find and deliver that oil. It hit up oil profits at the rate of 45%.

Wait! Over the same years governments took in another $1.34 trillion in excise fuel taxes. The oil companies had to collect that money and pass it on to governments.

In other words, governments grabbed nearly $2 trillion in taxes on oil and oil company profits. While oil companies made less than a third of what governments collected.