Because The Economy Hasn’t Tanked Enough
Geithner attacks oil, gas tax breaks for warmally incorrect companies. Reuters.
“We don’t believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don’t think that’s good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country,” Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House’s proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.
The Obama administration’s budget would levy an excise tax on oil and natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, raising $5.3 billion in revenue from 2011 to 2019.
This new 13 percent tax on all oil and gas production in the Gulf would only affect those companies enjoying a loophole that allows them to avoid paying royalties on the energy supplies they drill.
Sounds like a great excuse to raise taxes, if you believe in that kind of thing. Do it for the planet. Anyway, what’s the effect on the people who buy those supplies?
Geithner said the additional taxes “can be absorbed” by the oil and gas companies, given the billions of dollars they have earned from high energy prices.
“The impact of these subsidies are very small relative to revenues produced by U.S. oil and gas producers,” he said.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: No tax breaks for burping worms. However, I’d recommend a $30 million federal wormalism study to make sure the EU-funded Max Planck study didn’t miss anything.
Topics: Obama, taxes, warmalism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:48 pm Comments (4) on Thursday, March 5, 2009
4 Responses to “Because The Economy Hasn’t Tanked Enough”
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March 5th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Additional taxes ‘can be absorbed’ by the oil and gas companies? How, exactly?
Either their shareholders have to take a bath, their employees must accept wage cuts, or their customers pay – there’s nobody else.
There’s no throbbing black machine in the basement at Exxon – just employees, customers and shareholders.
This is the Tim Geithner who ‘absorbed’ his tax burden by not paying it, right?
March 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Crooks or Idiots?
March 5th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Take a good hard look at your power bill this month. How much more do you think it will be after your power company passes its cap-n-trade tax bill on to you?
March 5th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Crooks or Idiots?
Crooks *and* Idiots.