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Republicans looking out for the rich

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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/general/view.bg?articleid=1099898


WASHINGTON - Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt today to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won’t do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.

Americans are furious about what’s going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the "orgy of speculation" on oil markets. But Republican leaders said the Democrats’ plan would do harm rather than good — and they kept the legislation from being brought up for debate and amendments.
On world markets, oil prices retreated a bit Tuesday but remained above $131 a barrel. Gasoline prices edged even higher to a nationwide record average of $4.04 a gallon.
At the Capitol, Democratic leaders needed 60 votes and they got only 51 senators’ support, including seven Republicans who bucked their party leaders. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state tied closely to the oil industry, was the only Democrat opposing the bill.
"We are hurting as a country. We’re hurting individually as Americans ... and the other side says, ’Do nothing. Don’t even debate the issue,’" complained Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
"Average citizens are scratching their heads and saying, what’s wrong with Washington," said Schumer.
GOP opponents argued that little was to be gained by imposing new taxes on the five U.S. oil giants: Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and ConocoPhilips Co.
While these companies may be huge, they don’t set world oil prices and raising their taxes would discourage domestic oil production, the Republicans said of the Democrats’ plan.
"In the middle of what some are calling the biggest energy shock in a generation ... they proposed as a solution, of all things, a windfall profits tax," Republican leader Mitch McDonnell of Kentucky chided the Democrats. He called their proposal "a gimmick" that would not lower gasoline prices and only hold back domestic oil production.
"The American people are clamoring for relief at the pump," agreed Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., but "they will get exactly what they don’t want" under the Democrats’ plan — higher prices and an increase in oil imports.
The bill’s supporters argued that their proposal was different from the windfall profits taxes of the early 1980s that thwarted domestic production and led to a rise in imports. The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their "windfall" to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said.
Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. Again Democrats couldn’t get the 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster.
Neither Republican presidential candidate John McCain nor his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, were in Washington to cast votes on the energy issue on Tuesday.
Obama, in a statement, said Republicans had "turned a blind eye to the plight of America’s working families" by refusing to take up the energy legislation. Obama has supported additional taxes on the oil companies. McCain is opposed to such taxes and has proposed across-the-aboard tax reductions for industry as a way to help the economy.
Election-year politics hung over the debate. Democrats know their energy package has no chance of becoming law. Even it were to overcome a Senate GOP filibuster — a longshot at best — and the House acted, President Bush has made clear he would veto it.
But there was nothing to lose by taking on Big Oil when people are paying $60 to $100 to fill up their gas tanks.




The oil companies have been frequent targets of Congress. Twice this year, top executives of the largest U.S. oil producers have been brought before congressional committees to explain their huge profits. And each time the executives urged lawmakers to resist punitive tax measures, blaming high costs on global supply and demand.
In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats’ bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.
In an attempt to dampen oil market speculation, the legislation would require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and would provide authority to regulate U.S.-based trading in foreign markets. And it would make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.
After Tuesday’s defeat, Democrats did not rule out pushing the issue again.
"This was politics at its worst," complained Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "This was a refusal to debate the biggest problem confronting the American people. ... That takes nerve."

Why are we giving tax breaks to the people that is gouging us? The are the only companies that haven't been hurt. They are profiting on the destruction of the US economy and we are giving them 18 BILLION dollars. This is clear proof that the US political system needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt. All it is is the rich people paying the politicians to make them richer.

In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats’ bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.
In an attempt to dampen oil market speculation, the legislation would require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and would provide authority to regulate U.S.-based trading in foreign markets. And it would make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.
 
Should we be surprised? My questions about the little commentary at the beginning is what exactly is defined by "unreasonable profits"? I'm sure the bill contains more concrete definitions, but something like that could be debated for years, with no outcome.

xvart.
 
Actually the Govt isnt looking out for the rich..they are looking out for themselves.

Who makes the most profit from gas prices going up?
its not the oil companies..its the government..national, state and local..
because of the TAX on gas.

Taxes on gas are not a fixed amount..they are a percentage of the price per gallon.
so as the price per gallon goes up, government gets more and more money from gas taxes...therefore the govt has zero incentive to lower prices..they want and need the money.

I agree high gas prices are influenced by our seriously messed up government..
but not because of "doing favors for the rich"..
all politicians look out for themselves, their jobs, their power, (which requires $$) FIRST.
"the people" are always second..

and its not just a "Republicans" thing..
Democrats want and need just as much money as Republicans..
ALL politicians are corrupt and ruled by money..
actually, democrats want and need MORE money, because they need to fund all their welfare state projects..they need tons of (your) money to give away to people who dont feel like working for it.
So dont expect democrats to fix anything..if anything, their "big government" policies will only make things worse..

Scot
 
Actually the Govt isnt looking out for the rich..they are looking out for themselves.
They are looking out rich because they are the rich.

Taxes on gas are not a fixed amount..they are a percentage of the price per gallon.
That's untrue. The tax is a set amount per gallon. Each state has it's own rate plus the federal of 18.4 cents per gallon.

http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp

all politicians look out for themselves, their jobs, their power, (which requires $$) FIRST.
"the people" are always second..

Democrats want and need just as much money as Republicans..
ALL politicians are corrupt and ruled by money..
I agree 100%

and its not just a "Republicans" thing..
This issue is a republican thing.

actually, democrats want and need MORE money, because they need to fund all their welfare state projects..they need tons of (your) money to give away to people who dont feel like working for it.
So dont expect democrats to fix anything..if anything, their "big government" policies will only make things worse..
That's completely false.
 
It didn't pass because it is totally an anti-american idea. We don't cap businesses from making profits or tax them because they can make a profit here in America. It wouldn't have changed a thing with gas prices either. People need to get their heads out of the sand and realize that there's a reason why the gas prices are so high are because of supply and demand. Go over to the EU and see how much gasoline is there. While gas prices are high we don't pay anything close to any other country in the world. It's a darn good thing these Republicans stood up for American and capitalistic ideals.

BTW the smart thing to do (which the majority of Republicans agree with) is to drill more oil here on our soil in places like Alaska and to build more nuclear power plants. If Dems really cared about energy and the cost of oil they would help push for these ideas until we have something to replace oil all together.
 
#1 the feds and states make more from a gallon of gas than the oil companies and get the money with out risking a god damn thing....the oil companies are making huge $$ due to volume of sales

#2 the price of oil is going up because demand is going up.....India and China are very oil hungry at the moment....and before you say there are more cars in the US than in both countries combined let me ask you this....where are all your plastic toys and crap made? 55% of a barrel of oil goes towards manufacturing such as plastics, rubber, solvents, paint ect......not to mention ALOT of China's electricity is produced by diesel generators..

#3 part of the reason the price per barrel is going up is the fact its sold world wide based on US Dollars....the value of US dollars has been falling....hell a few years ago $1USD = $.85 Canadian......they are damn near equal now......

#4 the oil companies do not have a monopoly on oil, especially US companies.....Exxon only controls 2% of the worlds oil reserves......countries such as Saudi Arabia or Venezuela have Exxon beat by a large margin on percentages of the worlds oil under their control....

#5 oil is a commodity TRADED on the world market....just like grain, just like gold, just like silver, just like copper, just like lead....prices on ALL of these have gone up just like oil....hell while oil has only doubled in price...wheat has quadrupled.......the prices of ALL OF THESE are set on the world market....not by companies....

#6 slapping oil companies with a windfall tax is going to screw up many ppls retirements as most retirement plans have oil company stocks included in them....stock prices are linked to profits, take away profits and stock prices fall.....not to mention it sends a shockwave through the whole economy because it means congress gets to dictate wiether or not your making to much money........

#7 our congress keeps shutting down attempts to drill offshore and ANWR....aswell as tree huggers throwing a fit over new refineries being built....you want cheap gas? drill here drill now and build more refineries.......also its the wacko tree hugger types that keep shutting down nuclear power plants, wind power plants and all that.........if you look at why they arent being built its because idiots who say we cant drill for oil in ANWR also appose us building nuclear power plants to help get those in the northeast of of fuel oil heat and on to using electric heat.........

im glad congress didnt pass the windfall tax....that whole idea is just plain fugging retarded
 
The are the only companies that haven't been hurt.
+ pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and credit card companies. Those 4 industries combined will always continue to make larger and larger profits, even in a recession.
 
the credit card companies only make money cause ppl choose to live on credit which if they actually wanted to they wouldnt have to, but ppl like living above their means....pharmaceutical companies make big bucks cause americans want a pill to cure their ills rather than adjusting their diet or exercising......
 
Last I checked, it was governments that invested uncountable billions into roads and mind-boggling amounts (but not enough) to maintain them. How much does Big Oil spend for that? How much of every town's police dollars go to trying to maintaining order on the roads and how much does Big Oil pay each town? How much of US military spending goes to protecting their turf and how much do they pay for those services? The fact is they didn't pay their way when they made high profits and, with profits now being downright obscene, what's wrong with squeezing them for some of what government has done for them? Gas taxes don't come anywhere near paying the direct costs, let alone all the indirect costs.
 
  • #10
for companies of their size they are not making obscene profits....they are making profits that look huge cause they are huge companies dealing with billions of barrels of oil...that comes out of holes that cost $5 million plus to punch............the Feds and States are already pulling millions of dollars out of the oil companies to pay for crap.....there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 million gallons of gas sold each day roughly $0.75 cents(some states more, some states less) out of the sale of each of those gallons goes twords taxes paid directly to the states or the feds..........the oil companies are paying plenty in taxes now
 
  • #11
food for thought

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) said on Thursday it is getting out of the retail gas business in the United States as sky-high crude oil prices squeeze margins.

Those branded service stations may be the most public aspect of Exxon's business, but they account for a small part of the company's profits.

Out of the roughly 12,000 Exxon Mobil branded stations in the United States, Exxon, the world's largest publicly-traded oil company, owns about 2,220.

Exxon plans to sell those service stations over several years. They include about 820 stations that it also operates.

The company will maintain the Exxon and Mobil brands, Exxon spokeswoman Prem Nair said.

Consumers will still be buying gasoline at stations that carry the Exxon and Mobil names, but they will not be owned by the company.

Service stations have struggled, even with $4-a-gallon plus gasoline prices because they have not been able to pass along to customers their additional costs from soaring crude oil.

According to federal data, gasoline prices are up about 31 percent over the last year, and oil prices have nearly doubled over the same period.

"We are in a very, very challenging market. Margins are reduced," said Nair. "We feel the best way for us to grow and compete is through our distributor network."

In the current environment, the company's profits from its retail unit are "somewhere close to a rounding error," said Mark Gilman, an analyst at the Benchmark Co.

He said Exxon was following competitors like Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and BP Plc (BP.L) in moving away from ownership of service stations.

"The retail gasoline business is a highly volatile and typically low return kind of business and thus the decision," Gilman said.

Exxon made more than $40 billion in 2007, most of which came from its oil and gas production around the world.

"I think the decision came that it's more of a headache than its worth," said Oppenheimer & Co analyst Fadel Gheit.

Although the company does not release profit margin figures for its retail arm, Gheit estimated the stations' margin was between 10 percent and 15 percent, about one-third its margin on crude oil production.

"The question is who is going to buy them, and how much are they going to pay for them," Gheit said.

(Additional reporting by Matt Daily; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
 
  • #12
That's why Oscar Meyer's parent company doesn't own hot dog carts. Why invest in the lowest margin, most competitive part of the production chain when you can get a better return elsewhere?
 
  • #13
theres more margin in it if your selling your own product than if your not
 
  • #14
Here's a pretty simple concept here that hopefully everybody will one day understand. Realistically, corporations don't pay taxes. Ever.

Any taxes a company has to pay to the government are paid with the money that they make off their customers. If a company's taxes are raised, they will raise their prices to remain profitable. If you tax "big oil" they will just raise their prices even more. Ergo when the .gov taxes a company more they are actually taxing YOU more. You should not be happy about such idiocy. Of course people will cheer though.
 
  • #15
If governments taxed petroleum at a rate high enough to cover all its costs, renewable sources would be much more competitive. At current tax rates, petroleum use is subsidized because users don't pay all the costs.
 
  • #16
If governments taxed petroleum at a rate high enough to cover all its costs, renewable sources would be much more competitive. At current tax rates, petroleum use is subsidized because users don't pay all the costs.

All of the costs for what? ??? You really glossed over that one.

And turning food into fuel is completely idiotic from the get go. It's the dumbest idea to come along in a long long time.

So what other renewable resources do you have? Solar? Not practical/feasible for a daily driver type vehicle. Wind? Can't use that on a car, same with hydro.

Electric cars powered with electricity from breeder nuclear reactors is a step in the right direction, but people are ignorantly terrified of building more nuke plants.

There's a new bacteria that has been developed to produce fuel/oil from various types of waste and it shows a LOT of promise, but it's a ways off.
 
  • #17
And turning food into fuel is completely idiotic from the get go. It's the dumbest idea to come along in a long long time.

true but its a stepping stone to fuel from starch like switch grass.........besides at the moment if you take out high fructose corn syrup very lil of the corn crop goes twords food....its mainly used as livestock feed....i think last year only 14% of the total US corn crop went twords ethonal development which doesnt even come close to impacting what lil is used for food....and those screaming that it has impact cattle feed havent taken into consideration that the high price of a barrel of oil has more than doubled the cost of fertilizer(corn is a high nitrogen feeder), herbicides and pesticides as well as the fact all the machinery used to plant and harvest it runs on diesel.........that has a bigger impact on it than what little is used for ethonal in the past few years.......

There's a new bacteria that has been developed to produce fuel/oil from various types of waste and it shows a LOT of promise, but it's a ways off.

uh dont it make more sense to just drill our offshore deposits....China's pumping out our oil from them off of Florida in Mexican waters using directional drilling but our all knowing congress says we cant......maybe the Chinese will be nice enough to sell us OUR OWN OIL.....
 
  • #18
Petroleum taxes don't cover government costs of road work, emergency services, police protection, military adventures, etc. that are necessary to maintain our transportation system. They don't even cover just the cost of roads.

We can never satisfy our wasteful energy use with anything other than petroleum and even petroleum isn't a long term solution. People have to cut back some day, whether by choice or not, and I think we should be the ones to bite the bullet, before we destroy everything chasing cheap energy.

If we tax petroleum at a rate high enough to cover society's costs, other energy sources can be cost-effective and, maybe if people don't drive ten miles in two tons of steel & plastic to get a loaf of bread, other energy sources will be enough.

By the way, I totally agree about the absurdity of turning food into fuel. That never was anything but a gift to the agricultural-industrial complex and has far-reaching and long-lasting repercussions.
 
  • #19
BTW i just looked up only 12% of the total corn crop in the US is used for food every year....which is about the same as the amount used to make ethonal in 2007.....which means their is 75% of the corn crop that is mainly used to feed pigs and cows....though its not the only source of feed.....there is a plant 50 miles down the road that produces flax and canola oil...and they sell the waste for cattle feed as fast as they can produce it cause feed lot owners say the cattle like it better and they put on weight faster than when fed corn.....other than for high fructose corn syrup for sweets very lil corn is actually eaten in the US every year......and actually lots of farmers are switching to soybeans faster than they are corn cause soybeans are less labor intensive and farmers stand to make a better profit cause being a legume they dont have to dump near the fertilizer on it as corn.....soybean acreage is growing faster than corn
 
  • #20
Republicans looking out for the rich? That's not news!
 
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