Tax Breaks for Big Oil

I got the following in an email from Senator Claire McCaskill today. Following that is my response to her email.

Dear Walter,

There is more hot air around the United States Capitol about deficit reduction than about any other topic right now.

If we cannot end subsidies to the five most profitable corporations in the history of our planet, then I don’t know how Congress will make the truly difficult decisions about how to reduce the deficit.

Every year, billions of our tax dollars are given away to companies that made $36 billion in profits during this year's first quarter alone. It’s a practice that must stop. That money could be used to pay down our deficit.

A proposal I announced last week will take away $2 billion in annual taxpayer-provided subsidies from the five biggest oil companies and apply every dime to reducing the deficit. It is the essence of low-hanging fruit. This is the kind of idea that should receive unanimous support in the Senate. It’s common sense.

The big oil companies don’t need the money. Over the last ten years, they've raked in nearly $1 trillion – that’s $1,000,000,000,000 -- in profits. They've broken their own records for the most profitable quarter in economic history several times.

Big oil companies are not hurting, but Missourians are. While you pay record prices at the pump, you shouldn't be forced to also provide subsidies to an industry that clearly doesn’t need them.

As we address our national deficit this year, there are going to be a lot of tough decisions about how to close gaps wherever we can. Taxpayer-funded handouts to oil companies should be one of the easiest cuts we make.

All the best,

My response:

I really don't care about the tax breaks. If they are obsolete get rid of them. You are correct in that the oil companies don't really need them. But then how many tax breaks do you take advantage of that you don't really need? What I do care about concerning this is that if you want to end the tax breaks (they are not subsidies by the way, subsidies are what you give to farmers where you pay them not to grow stuff)  end them across the board. This idea of targeting specific tax breaks for specific companies is discriminatory and should be illegal. Next you'll be telling me we should take away some of Trump and Gates' tax breaks but some other millionaire like Buffet or Soros still needs them.

What distresses me more is that with a deficit well over 1 trillion dollars this year you find it necessary to concentrate so much effort on something that only saves about 0.2% of the annual deficit. That's not only less than impressive, that's shameful. Quit playing politics and cut the budget. You can start by getting rid of the Departments of Education and Energy. Neither are necessary and only swell the federal employee count unnecessarily.

If  you really want to do something to help with the oil companies, remove any and all restrictions that force companies with both upstream and downstream operations to pay market price for oil to supply American refineries. Then tell them if they can produce and sell oil to their own and other refineries for less than market price, doing otherwise will be considered gouging and prosecutions will ensue. It's an interesting side note that the President campaigned about the benefits of gasoline at this and even higher prices and lo and behold here we are. I guess that's one thing he talked about in the campaign that he managed to accomplish. All while talking about how evil "Big Oil" is.

Time to get to work or start packing boxes. We've had enough playing and posturing.