U.S. oil companies are estimated to make a combined $230 billion this year. Exxon Mobil, by itself, made $25.3 billion in profits last year. And these are just the oil companies, not even the entire energy sector. After all that, Congress has just agreed upon on an energy bill that will give the energy industry an additional $14.5 billion in tax credits and subsidies. It makes me want to scream out like Nancy Kerrigan after Tonya Harding's thugs slugged her in the knee, “Why?! Why?!”
Why are you taking my money and giving it to an already gluttonous industry drowning in a sea of oil profits? That’s $51.78 out of the pockets of every man, woman and child in the United States and in to the pockets of Exxon Mobil and Chevron. That’s insanity.
That’s also what we used to call welfare. Taking from some and giving it to others. Except personal welfare was at least for the needy, not the greedy. Corporate welfare is for the most advantaged. It turns logic completely on its head.
Can you imagine if Congress just passed a bill giving out welfare to the richest people in America? And they justified it by saying it’s tax incentives to get them to do the right thing. How about they do the right thing without any extra incentives and we keep our money in our pockets?
After all this, does the energy bill even promise to lower gas prices? Of course not. Fine, that might be too much to ask for, so how about advancing America’s energy independence at least? Nope.
So, why the hell did we just take it in the can for $14.5 billion dollars if the bill doesn’t even pretend to address our energy concerns?
Its defenders would say that there are also revenues that come out of this bill to the tune of $3 billion. Fine, even if that proves to be true -- and usually the government is far more likely to spend money rather than bring it back in -- then, we’re still in the hole for $11.5 billion.
The defenders of this welfare monstrosity then claim that there are some incentives for investments in renewable energy sources and tax breaks for energy efficiency and conservation. Let’s put aside the fact that sounds eerily familiar to “a hand up and not hand out” philosophy that conservatives used to abhor when it was applied to poor people. If these provisions are so good, why didn’t we just pass them and not the rest of the corporate giveaways?
In this energy bill, there is a $1 billion giveaway to oil and gas producers and refiners to shorten their depreciation periods. There is a $1.24 billion giveaway to the electric companies to shorten their depreciation periods. Why do I give a damn about their depreciation periods, and much more importantly, what on God’s green earth does that have to with America’s energy independence?
That’s just outright theft from the taxpayers and straight into the pockets of the oil, gas and electric companies. Did I mention that just the oil companies are set to make $230 billion this year?
And I haven’t even gotten to the coal companies and the nuclear industry and how we’re supposed to pay them $2.9 billion to produce clean coal and decommission old nuclear plants. Here’s an idea, you produce clean coal that doesn’t kill our kids, because that’s what you’re supposed to do anyway, and I keep my money.
What happened to the theoretical conservatives who hated welfare? What happened to the theoretical conservatives who believed in balanced budgets? What happened to theoretical conservatives who were against the government meddling in free markets?
Our government had a $421 billion deficit last year (of course, in reality, it is much bigger because we are still using up the Social Security surplus (yes I said surplus, despite the misinformation campaign, Social Security is the only thing keeping this government afloat right now)). What are we doing giving away money to absurdly profitable companies when we have no money to give? They should be giving us money. That used to be called taxes.
Fadel Gheit, an analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. said this about Exxon Mobil’s performance this year, “They made a lot of money last year, but now they are just printing it.” Fortune had an article a couple of months ago about how the new CEO of Exxon Mobil had the headache of trying to figure out where to put all their money.
And this was before we gave them tax breaks and subsidies, for the love of God! Why?! Why?!
Welfare queens like Exxon Mobil are sucking our government dry and by the time we wake up, the deficit is going to cause such a monumental economic crash that the Exxon Valdez will look a fender bender by comparison.
As a Republican in the 1980s and 1990s, I believed in welfare reform. Ironically, a Democrat, Bill Clinton, gave that to us. Now, we desperately need corporate welfare reform. I think it’s asking too much of irony to expect this Republican led Congress to deliver on that idea.