Obama Wants To End Oil Subsidies, Use The Money For Alt-Fuels

First, whenever the Democrats talk about "subsidies to the oil companies", what they mean is tax breaks, but guess what, no matter what tax incentives the government may give to oil companies, they still slap on plenty of taxes for customers to pay at the pump.
Now, Obama is appealing to his environmentally green base when he does this sort of thing, or else he is invested personally in it, or is paying back his cronies in the green energy industry. I don't believe he does anything for real altruistic reasons.

Based on the volume of Internet search results, you might think that oil companies, especially “BIg Oil,” are raking in billions of dollars in direct federal subsidies taxpayer payments every year. But you’d be wrong.
The reality is that oil companies, especially Big Oil (Exxon, BP, Shell, etc.), really don’t get any federal subsidies, if that term means “getting money to do something,” as Harold Hamm, CEO of Continential Resources reminded Congress in September when he testified that, “Some call the expensing of ordinary business expenses a “subsidy.” Now my recollection of what a subsidy means is when you are given money to do something. I guess when I drilled 17 dry holes in a row I missed that pay window. No one sent me a check.”

www.aei-ideas.org...

from Forbes

The ongoing debate in Washington over the possible repeal of what news media outlets commonly refer to as “subsidies” to the oil and gas industry has been an ongoing source of amusement and consternation to those who work in the industry for four years now

So how did all of this misinformation get started? It all began in 2009. Within days of being sworn in as the nation’s 44th President, Barack Obama ordered his staff to scour the tax code for any provision that was relevant to the oil and gas industry, and promptly began proposing them for repeal. The oil and gas industry has always been an easy target for political demagoguery, and that dynamic has played out repeatedly and consistently in this Administration.

Bottom line: Despite the Administration’s rhetoric that has been so widely repeated in the press, the tax treatments in question are not “subsidies” that are in any way outside of the mainstream of tax treatments commonly available to all U.S. industries. Rather than being mostly a benefit to “big oil”, the repeal of these and other oil and gas industry-related tax provisions would mainly impact smaller independent producers and royalty owners. Such repeal would serve no legitimate public policy purpose, other than to unfairly discriminate via the tax code against one of the nation’s most productive – albeit easily demonized – manufacturing industries.

I am pretty sure that the Prez' real agenda for cutting tax breaks for the oil and gas industry is to sack traditional energy supplies, just like when he said he wanted to shut down the coal industry and make energy prices "necessarily skyrocket". Who says stuff like that and have people vote for him twice???????? People who can afford higher electric prices? Or people who haven't figured this out yet?
www.forbes.com...

So will the alternative energy companies get tax breaks or will get cash loans like Solyndra did?

and then there's this

But look at the breakdown. The single largest expenditure is just over $1 billion for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is designed to protect the U.S. from oil shortages. The second largest category is just under $1 billion in tax exemptions for farm fuel. The justification for that tax exemption is that fuel taxes pay for roads, and the farm equipment that benefits from the tax exemption is technically not supposed to be using the roads. The third largest category? $570 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. (This program is classified as a petroleum subsidy because it artificially reduces the price of oil). Those three programs account for $2.5 billion a year in “oil subsidies.” So the next time you hear someone express outrage over oil company subsidies, you may want to ask them exactly which ones they are talking about.

In fact, look at the reaction from Democrats when President Obama tried to reduce funding for the program. Rep. Markey’s office said: “If these cuts are real, it would be a very disappointing development for millions of families still struggling through a harsh winter.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., noted her opposition: “The President’s reported proposal to drastically slash LIHEAP funds by more than half would have a severe impact on many of New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens and I strongly oppose it.” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote a letter to President Obama that stated in part: “We simply cannot afford to cut LIHEAP funding during one of the most brutal winters in history. Families across Massachusetts, and the country, depend on these monies to heat their homes and survive the season.” Each one of these Democrats was defending a program that has been identified as a subsidy to Big Oil.

www.csmonitor.com...!-Liberals-are-fans-too

Progressive Democrats are basically disingenuous about this, and they know that people will take their word and will not look any further into what is really going on. They bank on human nature to manufacture responses.
And what is the real agenda behind all this "green energy" ? Well, much of it is Agenda 21 Smart Growth and Sustainable Development and so on. I've posted on it many times, and as Rosa Koire wrote a book on it, called "Behind the Green Mask", it is indeed a mask for the real agenda of manipulating people into acceptable a one world government which controls and micro manages every aspect of our lives and deliberately seeks to radically change our way of life through bureaucratic regulations and rationing.
Think they won't be rationing? That's what Smart Meters are about. Imagine, our parents experienced rationing during WWII, what makes you think they don't have more rationing in store for us?

originally posted by: intrepid
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

There's a way around that IF the gov't was willing to do it. Tax and enforce the oil companies. They gouge, gouge them even further by taxation. Pass that back to the consumer. Yeah, like they would.

This would be a great idea, but yeah, like it would ever happen. We will never have a government that will put the brakes on the big guys.

Oil and gas subsidies really need to be stopped though. When you are wringing out billions of dollars in profits, you don't need subsidies.

So what if gas prices go up? They gouge us anyway, and will continue to do so, no matter how many brakes we give them. So if they are going to rip us off, we may as well make sure it hurts them too. Gas prices go up, inflation goes crazy, economy skydives, chaos follows. It is inevitable. Suffer now or suffer later. The only way things are going to change is if we are brought to our knees by a major meltdown.

Everything has to change. Not just at the top, but from the bottom as well. We made this bed.

a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is a private, conservative, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics and social welfare think tank founded in 1938. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate".[2] AEI is an independent nonprofit organization supported primarily by grants and contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Some AEI scholars are considered to be some of the leading architects of the second Bush administration's public policy.[3] More than twenty AEI scholars and fellows served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions. Among the prominent former government officials now affiliated with AEI are former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, now an AEI senior fellow; former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities Lynne Cheney, a longtime AEI senior fellow; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now an AEI senior fellow; former member of the Dutch parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an AEI visiting fellow; and former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, now an AEI visiting scholar. Other prominent individuals affiliated with AEI include Kevin Hassett, Frederick W. Kagan, Leon Kass, Charles Murray, Michael Novak, Norman J. Ornstein, Richard Perle, Radek Sikorski, Christina Hoff Sommers, Peter J. Wallison, and Mark Perry.

American Enterprise Inst...wiki

You trust these people?

a reply to: LDragonFire

Well, I do not care much for Perle and Wolfowitz or Lynn Cheney. John Bolton is fine.

If you are suffering from Bush Hatred Syndrome, I can understand your feeling on this, but the post was meant to emphasize how the social democrats skew things based on their Marxist worldview.
People here post all kind of stuff from all the typical Soros funded sites like MoveOn or Huffpo or even Factchecker which is Bill Ayers' Annenberg Project.

I notice you didn't mention Forbes, my second source, and you also conveniently overlooked the point made that the 3rd largest "Subsidy" to Big Oil comes in the form of help to poor people who already cannot pay their electric bill, and yet Democrats are acting like they are going to help everyone by taxing more. Ever the way of socialists.

Here's a liberal media source that uses the more correct term "Tax breaks".

The legislation would repeal a handful of tax breaks that the oil industry receives,

I bet if your tax preparer got you a tax break on your return, you wouldn't call it a "subsidy" or welfare.