June 11, 2008
Senate GOP blocks windfall taxes on Big Oil
Blind adherence to “free market” principles continue to muck up our political system.
Senate GOP blocks windfall taxes on Big Oil
WASHINGTON – Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won’t do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any “unreasonable” profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.
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The bill’s supporters argued that their proposal was different from the windfall profits taxes of the early 1980s that thwarted domestic production and led to a rise in imports. The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their “windfall” to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said.
In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats’ bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.
We are overly dependent on oil, especially foreign oil. Prices are skyrocketing yet oil companies are making RECORD profits. This can only mean that they are passing all of the excess costs to consumers, who now pay $4 a gallon at the pump. As large multinational corporations with huge Washington lobbies, the oil companies can, without penalty, defer the added costs of oil to the unorganized, apparently under-represented consumers and still make billions. This bill would have taxed these gross excesses of profit (at the public’s expense) and forced Big Oil to either redistribute some of their ill-gotten wealth or even better, skip the taxes by way of investment in alternative energy, which we desperately need. Instead, republicans killed the bill.
But it gets even better:
Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation.
What the hell is going on? This is a text book example of how unrestrained capitalism creates inequality. The republican congresspeople clearly feel no accountability to a majority of their constituents, i.e. average people who can’t afford lobbies. They need to be held accountable at the polls. This is so damn frustrating.
Bad News: I’m a fascist
Woo hoo! That unbelievable moron Bill O Reilly called me a “lunatic,” a “fascist,” and “anti-American.” Does this mean I have now arrived as a progressive?
I just got back from the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis – an amazing event. Paraphrasing McChesney and Nichols, “media reform” describes the broad goals of a movement that holds that consolidated ownership of broadcast and cable media, chain ownership of newspapers, and telephone and cable-company colonization of the Internet are bad for our culture and for democracy.
Apparently this is “lunacy” and “far left” to O Reilly, which shows that he is is a total jackass, and more importantly, that he is completely out of touch with the actual “center” of American politics. The only people who believe that big media are beneficial to the public are the people who own them and their sock puppets like O Reilly. Word.
