Monday Lift
There aren't too many better ways to start a work-week than reading an editorial like this one published in the NY Times. Imagine: The Gray Lady taking on big oil! The editorial really nails it, albeit in abbreviated form, when it comes out in support of ending the corporate welfare for companies such as BP:
President Obama’s 2011 budget, proposed before the spill, would eliminate $4 billion in annual tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Bills in both houses introduced after the spill would achieve many of the same results. Industry has spent $340 million on lobbying over the last two years to block these sorts of initiatives, and until recently Congress has been eager to do its bidding. This year could be different. ...
Industry argues that these and other breaks are vital to robust domestic production and that both investment and employment would fall if they were eliminated. These arguments, which may have made sense years ago, are much less compelling when oil prices are hovering near $80 a barrel and oil companies — including BP — have been racking up huge profits.
Moreover, a Treasury Department analysis says that ending these breaks would reduce domestic production by less than 1 percent. A separate study by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee says that ending the biggest of the deductions — 9 percent of qualified income from gas and oil produced in the United States — would have zero effect on consumer prices.
That "robust domestic production" has actually declined over the decades as the easily accessible oil has been pumped. To keep profits as healthy as the mega-corps would like they've gone to the riskier sources, those located miles below the surface of the ocean. We see what that can bring. Maybe cutting out all the breaks will discourage oil companies from such endeavors. That wouldn't bother me one bit.
Nor would I mind busting their chops for avoiding any corporate taxes by moving their corporate offices out of the US. Talk about a perversion of the "pay, go" principle!
No, let's cut out that corporate welfare. Instead, as the editorial concludes, use the money for cleaner, more sustainable forms of energy, such as solar, wind, and wave research and technology. The seeds have already been planted, but the necessary investment hasn't been forthcoming.
As to the job loss issue, I figure that we could easily underwrite the cost of retraining oil industry employees to work in safer fields. In fact, many community colleges are itching to expand those opportunities now, but they don't have the funding.
The trick, of course, is getting the necessary movement in the Congress. It would require our elected officials to close the door on lobbyists coming in with satchels of money and require them to do the jobs we elected them to do. I'm not as optimistic on this front, but apparently the NY Times is. I sincerely hope they're right.
President Obama’s 2011 budget, proposed before the spill, would eliminate $4 billion in annual tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Bills in both houses introduced after the spill would achieve many of the same results. Industry has spent $340 million on lobbying over the last two years to block these sorts of initiatives, and until recently Congress has been eager to do its bidding. This year could be different. ...
Industry argues that these and other breaks are vital to robust domestic production and that both investment and employment would fall if they were eliminated. These arguments, which may have made sense years ago, are much less compelling when oil prices are hovering near $80 a barrel and oil companies — including BP — have been racking up huge profits.
Moreover, a Treasury Department analysis says that ending these breaks would reduce domestic production by less than 1 percent. A separate study by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee says that ending the biggest of the deductions — 9 percent of qualified income from gas and oil produced in the United States — would have zero effect on consumer prices.
That "robust domestic production" has actually declined over the decades as the easily accessible oil has been pumped. To keep profits as healthy as the mega-corps would like they've gone to the riskier sources, those located miles below the surface of the ocean. We see what that can bring. Maybe cutting out all the breaks will discourage oil companies from such endeavors. That wouldn't bother me one bit.
Nor would I mind busting their chops for avoiding any corporate taxes by moving their corporate offices out of the US. Talk about a perversion of the "pay, go" principle!
No, let's cut out that corporate welfare. Instead, as the editorial concludes, use the money for cleaner, more sustainable forms of energy, such as solar, wind, and wave research and technology. The seeds have already been planted, but the necessary investment hasn't been forthcoming.
As to the job loss issue, I figure that we could easily underwrite the cost of retraining oil industry employees to work in safer fields. In fact, many community colleges are itching to expand those opportunities now, but they don't have the funding.
The trick, of course, is getting the necessary movement in the Congress. It would require our elected officials to close the door on lobbyists coming in with satchels of money and require them to do the jobs we elected them to do. I'm not as optimistic on this front, but apparently the NY Times is. I sincerely hope they're right.
Labels: Corporate Welfare, oil companies
posted by Diane at 3:04 AM
1 Comments:
The trick, of course, is getting the necessary movement in the Congress. It would require our elected officials to close the door on lobbyists coming in with satchels of money and require them to do the jobs we elected them to do. I'm not as optimistic on this front, but apparently the NY Times is. I sincerely hope they're right.
The trick is also getting the necessary movement from Barry and Rahmbo, people I voted for in the primary and the general (held my nose for Rahmbo, but just like Fred Hiatt and Donald Graham, you can't castigate the employee and forgive the employer).
Yuck.
~
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