We can't take away $17 billion in corporate welfare because it "would amount to a tax increase on the oil companies." These are the same oil companies having record-breaking profits year after year at our expense!
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/12330
Oil giants keep billions in tax breaks
With oil companies receiving more than $4 for each gallon of gas they sell, Senate Democrats today tried to eliminate the $17 billion in tax breaks Congress has awarded them in recent years.
It also imposed a windfall profits tax.
But Republicans wanted nothing to do with either. In a largely party line vote, they blocked the Democrats’ attempt to bring the tax issue to a vote, so it died on the Senate floor.
For the record, Republicans Kit Bond of Missouri and Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts of Kansas all basically voted to continue the oil company tax breaks. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill voted to kill them, the tax breaks that is.
"…if the choice is to do nothing, then I hope the people of this country rise up and scream like they've never screamed before," she said on the Senate floor. "How…dare us do nothing? That is what they're ready to vote on, saying, ‘We're not going to let you proceed to do something about this problem.’ It take a lot of nerve, Mr. President, it takes a lot of nerve."
"I’m from the Show-Me State," Bond said in a statement after the vote, "and you can’t show me a time when raising taxes on something lowered its price or increased its supply. With $4 a gallon gas, we need real solutions that open up supplies of energy here at home and give American families the relief they need."
Roberts spokeswoman Sarah Little said he opposed a vote on abolishing the tax breaks because if it passed, he believes it would amount to a tax increase on the oil companies and result in even higher gas prices.
Brownback aide Brian Hart said the Kansas Republican also opposed the tax increases in the bill. Hart said Brownback didn't think the measure did anything to increase energy supplies.
$17 Billion in Welfare to oil companies
Member #: 7176
Registered: 1996-2001
Posted:
173
Name:
Brian
Occupation:
lineman
Location:
Denver CO
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