Posted on 09/23/2009 10:49:02 AM PDT by larry hagedon
***Obama wants to end all Federal subsidies for petroleum***
“Does this mean that Mexico and Brazil will not get US tax money for exploration?”
The article didnt say, but I seriously doubt it. I know Obama recently pledged 2 billion dollars to a George Soros connected company for drilling in Brazil, seems like I saw an Obama pledge for Mexican drilling too.
sr4402 wrote;
To what, and what amount have the alleged Subsidies been? Anyone??
I am trusting that the AP story is accurate. If it is a hoax, then I have been fooled.
I have no info other than the article.
I have researched these subsidies off and on for years. The one thing I have learned is that subsidies are often well hidden and intentionally so. Your congressman does not want you to know about his giveaways to any business, industry or interest group.
“My point Muli, is that the fossil fuel industry is subsidized even greater than alternative energies.”
There are different forms of subsidies given to fossil fuel sources and “alternative” fuels.
I know nothing that quantifies those subsidies to show the subsidies to fossil fuels are, in total including all subsidies, greater in any sense than alternative fuels - in a context that shows revenue, taxes and the sum of all subsidies for each energy source.
In terms of per-gallon subsidies, for the number of gallons produced and sold, and the revenue received therefrom, ethanol receives the largest % of return from subsidies than any fuel source right now - not fossil fuels.
Comparing mere $$ sums of a subsidy, with no context to production, revenues and taxes paid tells you nothing about how “large” is, comparatively, any subsidy.
Its no different than complaining about the $$ amount of Exxon profits (earnings after taxes and expenses, which amounted to a rate of between 7 and 10 cents on each dollar of revenue) while Google’s profits run consistently three to four times that. Yet, what does it cost to install or lease a server-farm versus drilling rigs, refineries, ships, pipelines, etc???
The only true test of possible “greed” in profits is as a percentage of revenue (not the aggregate amount), and within and across industries. On a per-dollar of revenue retained after taxes and expenses, I imagine advertising - the image industry - is the most greedy and profitable industry on earth, and probably the least deserving in terms of true value delivered to the consumer (who thinks, in error, someone else paid for the advertising).
Oh, (no offense) but it’s “Wuli”, as in “The Dancing Wuli Masters” - a book on quantum physics for non-physicists.
OK Larry, then tell me, other than the oil depletion allowance, what massive subsidies are you talking about? If you’re so well-informed, then you can answer that question.
Larry, I’m not trying to start a fight with you, but just be aware that a liberal (probably) organization like the Environmental Law Institute is going to say that some items in the tax code are “tax breaks” and “subsides”, while oil companies do not consider the same items to be “tax breaks” and “subsidies.” There are a lot of judgment calls about what is a “tax break” and what isn’t. For example, the administration is trying to eliminate the current year write-off for Intangible Drilling Costs, which include things like site preparation costs for drilling sites. It’s a judgment call whether that kind of cost should be written off in the current year or capitalized and depreciated over a longer timeframe.
So there’s no clear definition of subsidies for oil producers and even if you use the definition of subsidies from the ELA, you get these kind of numbers from the article:
“In the US the biggest fossil fuel subsidies are tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels that add up to US$29.4 billion over six years, according to the Environmental Law Institute report.”
That’s not a massive subsidy in any way. Exxon-Mobil alone sells over $200 billion in oil products every year and all the other oil companies combined sell probably at least that much. So you’re talking about over $2 trillion in oil product sales in six year, which means even a high estimate like $29.4 billion isn’t much more than 1% of total sales. Even if true, that number isn’t a massive subsidy.
The massive subsidies in America are the huge unjustified budgets for federal bureaucracies like the Education Department, which costs over $20 billion every year and produces almost nothing of any value. I have no doubt that all the useful work in the federal Dept. of Education could be done by 2,000 people with good computer systems at a cost of less than $1 billion. The rest of the activity in that department is a bunch of wasted time and expense that is not improving the education system and may well be degrading the quality of education in America. But I’m sure you know about costly federal bureaucracies, so I’m just posting this for everyone else...in all sincerity I’ll bet you know a lot about useless federal spending.
Well, that shouldn't be too hard, since there aren't any.
Anything less than a 100% tax rate is a subsidy to this clown.
You’ve been fooled.
Ok, Physicist, I googled up this one, connected with the original article. Yes, it has got climate change crap in it, but it has the numbers you want too.
http://www.eli.org/pressdetail.cfm?ID=205
Larry, you’re taking the replies to you too personally. We’re just debating the subject...it’s not personal. If you’re going to debate here at FR you need to get used to disagreement and don’t take it personally or too seriously.
That lawyer at ELI is an ignorant leftist who thinks there actually is a “climate change problem”, even though there hasn’t been any significant change in the earth’s temperature over the last 25 years. (See post entitled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” on FR). So I don’t have any faith in his estimates of subsidies. But even if you use his numbers it still only adds up to a few percent of total sales of oil products. You can’t trust liberal lawyers. They’re always trying to use the law to shake down somebody for money.
Do you know what a subsidy is? Here is a hint... A tax break is not a subsidy. It is an agreement to NOT steal as much of your income as the fedgov normally would.
this web site has a lot of specific subsidy info;
http://www.eli.org/pressdetail.cfm?ID=205
http://www.eli.org/pdf/Energy_Subsidies_Black_Not_Green.pdf
actually this web site has several pages of subsidy info;
http://www.eli.org/pressdetail.cfm?ID=205
http://www.eli.org/pdf/Energy_Subsidies_Black_Not_Green.pdf
So we'll all be paying more for petroleum products without receiving a corresponding tax cut to offset it.
This is functionally a tax, probably a huge one, that will hit all classes.
But, he promised us that he would only raise taxes on the "rich."
Gotta love those Obama promises.
http://www.eli.org/pdf/Energy_Subsidies_Black_Not_Green.pdf
http://www.eli.org/pressdetail.cfm?ID=205
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.