TEA PARTY TO AMERICA: NOW WHAT?!

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Rep. William Keating (D-MA) offered the motion on the House floor saying "let's stop sending taxpayers' money to the most profitable companies in the world."

Republicans voted unanimously against the motion, defeating it by a vote of 176-249.Cycloptichorn

Pull the string on a liberal, and out comes words like "Big Oil" and similar.

Not all oil companies are big, nor are oil companies generally the most profitable in the world. I just talked yesterday with a man that has a very small producing company with interests in 30 some wells. He is trying to coax production out of those wells with various techniques, and also trying to figure out if drilling a new well on one place could be done with his limited budget.

Please get beyond the simple minded bigotry against profits and capitalism that are embedded in liberal thinking.

I do wish you would use proper English when posting.

spendius wrote:

We are all socialist when getting money and capitalists when spending it.

Earning ones money does not make one a socialists.
Spending other peoples money does not make you a capitalists.

Are you seriously defending government subsidy of industry here?
The guy you talked to isn't where our billions of dollars are going, Okie.
How can you be serious about cutting spending and balancing the budget, but want to ignore billions of dollars which are just handed out to a company for nothing?
Cycloptichorn

One other example, have you ever looked into an open pit copper mine, and wonder at the accomplishment of man?

Which subsidies and tax incentives are you talking about? Specifics are necessary here to figure out what you are actually complaining about.

As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig’s owner to significantly reduce its American taxes.

The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.

At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon — a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.

With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.

But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.

According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.

And for many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by var-ious credits. These companies’ returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before.

“The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who has worked alongside the Obama administration on a bill that would cut $20 billion in oil industry tax breaks over the next decade. “There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer.”

Oil industry officials say that the tax breaks, which average about $4 billion a year according to various government reports, are a bargain for taxpayers. By helping producers weather market fluctuations and invest in technology, tax incentives are supporting an industry that the officials say provides 9.2 million jobs.

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry advocacy group, argues that even with subsidies, oil producers paid or incurred $280 billion in American income taxes from 2006 to 2008, and pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes than most other American corporations.

As oil continues to spread across the Gulf of Mexico, however, the industry is being forced to defend tax breaks that some say are being abused or are outdated.

The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday announced that it was investigating whether Transocean had exploited tax laws by moving overseas to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Efforts to curtail the tax breaks are likely to face fierce opposition in Congress; the oil and natural gas industry has spent $340 million on lobbyists since 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors political spending.

Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs.

“These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe,” he said. “So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them.”

But some government watchdog groups say that only the industry’s political muscle is preserving the tax breaks. An economist for the Treasury Department said in 2009 that a study had found that oil prices and potential profits were so high that eliminating the subsidies would decrease American output by less than half of one percent.

“We’re giving tax breaks to highly profitable companies to do what they would be doing anyway,” said Sima J. Gandhi, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. “That’s not an incentive; that’s a giveaway.”

It's almost as if you don't know that old copper mines and strip-mines are ecological disasters. But surely you aren't that clueless about things, right?
Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

It's almost as if you don't know that old copper mines and strip-mines are ecological disasters. But surely you aren't that clueless about things, right?
Cycloptichorn

I guess you are unaware that minerals were located in some places before man ever extracted them from the earth? The earth was created to be that way. Have you ever visited Yellowstone Park and wondered about all the mineral pollution there? Nature did it. I could cite you more examples.

In the case of coal strip mines, the company I used to work for, they reclaimed many old mines and made them into ponds and wetlands that supports wildlife in abundance. Incidentally, coal occurred naturally throughout the country, before man every attempted to mine any of it. Gravel pits are also commonly reclaimed into ponds that support healthy fisheries.

In case you are unaware, man is also a part of nature, just as much as any other animal or organism on this earth. As a point of illustration, do you object to beavers cutting trees down without a permit or environmental impact statement being done first?

Buy oil company stock, cyclops. That is the simple answer to your nonsense.

Don't be a fool, Okie. Seriously. I like having conversations with you but not if you're going to act like an idiot.
Cycloptichorn