More on those job-destroying energy taxes
Yesterday, I noted the tax hike on drilling in the White House budget.
The Institute for Energy Research further exposes how the president raises taxes on efficient energy to give subsidies to inefficient energy:
The Obama Administration today released its proposed FY 2011 budget. Not surprisingly, it contained $36.5 billion in new taxes over ten years on the oil and gas industries, while heaping new billions in taxpayer support for politically-favored energies. Such policies are never a good idea, but they are particularly destructive in the midst of a severe recession. Levying new taxes on efficient energy, and new subsidies for inefficient energy, is a recipe for higher prices and fewer jobs.
New Taxes on Oil & Gas
The White House budget request claims that, “Oil and gas subsidies are costly to the American taxpayer and do little to incentivize production or reduce energy prices.” In the first place, it is odd to hear the White House worrying about high energy prices, and also to hear it deny that tax policy gives incentive for production.
Both of these points flatly contradict the whole philosophy behind the White House’s favored cap-and-trade scheme, which is expressly designed to (a) raise the price of fossil-based energy and (b) reduce the incentives to use such energy sources. The White House can’t have it both ways: Do they want higher energy prices (cap-and-trade) or don’t they? And do they think government policies influence energy production, or don’t they? If they claim tax hikes on the oil and gas industries won’t have any incentive effects on production or jobs, then how can they claim that “green investments” will create jobs in the solar and wind industries?
The White House’s statement also euphemistically labels its tax hikes as ending “subsidies” to the oil and gas industries, but that would only be true if the IRS is considered the rightful owner of every dime earned in America. After all, in 2008 alone, the major energy producers incurred $95.6 billion in total income taxes, of which $23.2 billion went to the U.S. government at all levels (the rest being owed to foreign governments). On top of the straight income taxes, oil and natural gas producers paid an addition $12.5 billion in U.S. production taxes.[i] The oil and natural gas industries are hardly being “propped up” by the taxpayer, in contrast to the solar industry and others that can’t pass the market test. The so-called loopholes and tax subsidies are really just methods of allowing private companies to keep more of the money they earned from providing consumers with low-cost energy.
Wealth redistribution with a green cloak.
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Green is the new red.
You need to add a ‘y’ to yesterday. But it is a good post.
I saw a stat on Fox Business where it showed Exxon paid 80B in taxes last year.
All the harping about ‘excess profits’, when are Americans going to look at 80B to the government as excess profit to the government?
I assure you America would be far better off without the governments’ ‘help’.
Worse than wealth distribution – deliberate debilitation of the overall US energy industry, with the inevitable consequence of continuous decline in US standard of living and place in the world.
Not to mention the lost opportunity of doing something right available funds and talent.
A little OT
Obama actually cutting the budget. For the Coast Guard and Border Patrol.
700 to 1100 Coasties, and about 18 Border Patrol agents, gone…
Correct.
Related…see:
Free World Leader: Lech Walesa, “The world has no leadership. The US was always the last resort and hope for all other nations.That was the hope, that whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today we lost that hope.”
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/02/free-world-leader-lech-walesa-the-world-has-no-leadership.html
As a poster said on another of this morning’s threads:
“The issue is never the issue.
The issue is always control (power).”
Which, I believe, is from Saul Alinsky’s nihilist, anti-American playbook.
It is not in the least off topic.
We are in an existential struggle for our nation and our lives.
The fascist/statist/America-haters are trying to distract our attention, trying to keep us from seeing all the aspects of what they are actually trying to do…to “transform” America.
The libs, MSM and enviro-nazis have been demonizing oil and gas for the past 40 years and have succeeded in brainwashing a large part of the public into believing that our society would somehow be better without these incredible sources of energy. Even more evil is that they profitable. So of course they should be attacked. Who would want a successful industry that provides critical services and good jobs to countless thousands? Better to have everybody working in the “helping industries”, NGO’s or public service (and don’t make too much money doing it or you will be evil too.)
Don’t forget to keep an eye on Obama’s Crap ‘N Tax slush fund hidden in the “budget”.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/02/02/phil-kerpen-obama-budget-cap-trade-tax-deficit-black-box/
Rage against the Marxists.
Hmmm.
Higher energy prices hurt the middle class making them more dependent on government. Democrats promise more free stuff from the government. Therefore, more people will vote Democrat.
Hey, let’s test that theory.
So they are going to tax domestic oil & gas production driving oil companies off shore, in an effort to wean ourselves off foreign oil & gas.
Makes sense in a Washington DC bureaucrat sort of way.
As a citizen of a major energy producing state working for a small independent closely held oil company, I’m real worried.
We deal primarily with wells that the big oil companies deem too marginal to continue producing, (we have much lower overhead so our per barrel cost is much less), any additional hit will just result in more wells being shut down.
These guys are trying to kill the domestic oil & gas industry in the name of environmentalism.
Yes, I remember a stat that for every dollar of profit, oil companies pay $3 in taxes. So, when I see headlines such as “Exxon-Mobil Posts Record Profit”, I think “Exxon-Mobil Pays Record Amount of Taxes”. You’ll never see that in print, though.
Not to belabor the point, but corporations don’t pay taxes, we do. Middle America pays most of the nation’s tax burden. Never forget that. By definition, people like Obama and the Democrats are enemies of the American people. We are the hosts, they are the parasites.
Axiom #1: The customer always pays.
Exactly!
on the subject of taxes, many states are trying to squeeze more money from the working productive sector of society. a drudge article today tells a story, and once again i am amazed that the concept of cutting gubmint workers NEVER is thought of by these governors. why we have between 10 and 17% private sector unemployment and are still adding gubmint sector workers while simultaneously running deficits is incomprehensible to me. IT APPEARS TO ME THAT NO POLITICIANS HAVE THE GUTS TO CUT ANY PROGRAM , SO BANKRUPTCY IS THE ONLY END FOR THIS DEMOCRACY. SO BRING ON THE RINOS TO HURRY THE COUNTRY’S ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AND NEW CONSTITUTION TO ONCE AGAIN TRY TO LIMIT THE GOVERNMENTS POWER GRAB OVER EVERYONE’S LIBERTIES AND RIGHTS.
California has been the poster child for liberal thinking for eons. That same thinking has permeated every liberal program in D.C. So goes CA, so goes the nation….they’re broke and so is the country. What is Plan B?
Actually, your company might make out just fine if Cap&Trade fails but the ability to expense intangible drilling costs is killed. These actions will probably cause the price of oil and gas to appreciate yet your company probably doesn’t do much drilling.
Although, I wonder if intangible workover and well maintenance costs will be attacked next.
History will look back on Obama’s failed administration and boil it down to a single phrase: “Say one thing, do another”.
It’s amazing the contortions tax laws are bent into and the unheard of areas Democrats find to levy new taxes against this nation’s energy producers. If the GOP fails to retake control of the government in 2010 & 2012 bringing about the change in the direction this country must have, then sustainable and reliable energy will be a thing of the past as this administration and the Democrats in both Houses appear to intend ending America’s oil and gas industries.
Yes, but people making under $250,000 don’t buy fossil fuel products so they aren’t paying any of the tax passed along in the price. /sarc
It’s time for a “day without the American Taxpayer”. Every time the gov has what it considers a bright idea, the taxpayer gets the bill. BHO cares nothing about the cost of living going up. It’s all about being able to tax high and tax often.
Stossel’s column today is about a couple of Obama’s green business cronies. A “little window company” called Serious Materials is getting a green subsidy. Cathy Zoi works at the U.S. Department of Energy and she “oversees $16.8 billion in stimulus funds, much of it for weatherization programs that benefit Serious.” She’s also married to “Robin Roy, who happens to be vice president of ‘policy’ at Serious Windows.”
I’d like a serious job for some of that green stuff.
SUNY at Albany, you’re next!
You better start getting your house in order – reopen your investigation of Dr. Wang now!
Penn State might save their reputation. Will you?
Sorry. Wrong thread.
Gotta raise those taxes to pay Peggy the Moocher! Making it more expensive for corporations to provide this country with necessary resources to operate is going to “spend” the “middle class” into the “lower class.”
The stupidest thing I’ve heard lately, is Da One saying that President George W. Bush’s tax cuts were passed with no way to pay for them. If Da One would look at FACTS instead of his agenda, he’d see that tax revenues increased after the “tax cuts for the wealthy.”
Hope is not a plan; not all change is good. WE are the civilian national security force! Note to Da One: Cut spending NOW! The resistance is here; the resistance is now! RESIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ECS
Yes, we got the word from the Commandant of the Coast Guard that we will be losing billets and closing down up to 4 deployable marine safety & security teams. Less security, more money for Obama to waste on social programs.
Senator Gregg scolded the WH budget director for abuse of TARP fund repayments http://wp.me/pLGBN-2z
He noted how Obama is breaking the law.