The shiny new Republican majority in the U.S. House showed how serious it is about cutting unnecessary spending yesterday, when the GOPers voted unanimously to keep on throwing away billions on multinational oil corporations. Yes, you read that right. House GOPers voted unanimously (along with 13 Democrats) to continue big federal subsidies — no one seems to know exactly how big, but it’s well into the billions per year — for big oil companies. As the House was working out a stopgap measure to prevent a government shutdown, Democrats proposed stripping the five biggest oil companies of all government subsidies. After all, Big Oil is swimming in record-busting profits — $77 billion in 2010 for the top five oil companies, despite BP losing money, and $952 billion over the last 10 years. Plus, with oil hovering around $100 per barrel, gas prices headed through the roof, and even the former Shell Oil CEO saying big oil companies don’t need subsidies anymore, surely the oily behemoths can manage without more taxpayer dollars, right? No, not if you’re a Republican in the House. Just thought you’d like to know who’s bending over the chair for Big Oil, even if it means putting that budget-cutting thing on hold. Hey, here’s an idea: take the subsidies to Big Oil and put them toward companies working on electric cars, solar collector effectiveness, or wind farms. Just a thought.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2011.
Only a blind lemming thinks that the Republican party cares about anyone who makes less than a million dollars a year.
But ignorant poor and middle class people just keep buying their rhetoric and voting for them anyway. After all, not worshiping the rich people is “Socialism”.
In general I dislike any subsidy. The first question would be what is the subsidy for? They we could decide if it made any sense or not.
The easiest way to cut the budget would be to cut everything by the same percentage then no one could complain about being singled out. Everyone would have to make the same amount of sacrifice.
As for individual programs the department of education would be the first that should go. Talk about your no added benefits.
Tax cuts are not subsidies, rather a decrease in theft. We should be clear about which we’re discussing here.
The Teapucs are doing the business of the people that paid to put them in office,,,oil corps of course! The only way we the people are going to get our government back is to get rid of the lobbiest money. Term limits would help, along with a ban on working for corp/wallstreet for at least 8 years after holding an elected office!
Congress can’t cut the “subsidies to big oil” because there is no government agency or law that is giving the oil companies cash. Besides 2 Billion dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to the deficit. The debt is currently growing by over 2 million dollars per minute!