I agree. catfish1957 apparently loves government intervention.
Where were the oil subsidies in Beaumont Texas, Titusville, PA, Long Beach, CA at the turn of the century?
All subsidies are a gimmick... including the sacrosanct farm subsidies.
Posted on 06/01/2011 5:55:00 PM PDT by Kaslin
Energy Policy: The former governor of energy-rich Alaska calls the administration's bluff: End tax breaks for all forms of energy, she says, and let the free market pick winners and losers. End the ethanol pandering too.
She isn't running, or riding, for president, at least not yet. But at a stop on her One Nation bus tour, Sarah Palin offered a winning idea for an economy strapped for energy and jobs and saddled with unsustainable debt.
"I think all our energy subsidies need to be re-looked at today and eliminated," Palin told Scott Conroy of Real Clear Politics during a quick stop at a coffee shop. "And we need to make sure that we're investing and allowing our businesses to invest in reliable energy products right now that aren't going to necessitate subsidies because, bottom line, we can't afford it."
These would be genuine, private investments that create wealth and produce tax revenues, not government subsidies to politically favored energy sources that consume taxes and reduce wealth. Palin, in stark contrast to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, took particular aim at ethanol subsidies that cost taxpayers about $5 billion last year.
Democrats like to rail against "oil subsidies," the elimination of which they say would save about $20 billion over 10 years. That's less than the $26 billion the Energy Department, which produces no energy, consumes in one year. Never mind these annual tax credits are afforded to almost every other industry.
The government is hardly losing money on the deal considering that, according to the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry generates almost $100 million of revenues per day in income taxes, excises and royalties for the federal government. That's on top of an effective 55% corporate tax rate that is higher than in most industries.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Sarah Palin doesn’t consider the Tax Credits for oil companies “subsidies” and has defended them.
If there’s actual subsidies involved, and not just free access to “government” land, or deductibility of expenses, then I have no problem canceling them, IF they simultaneously eliminate all the government interference that DIScourages domestic energy development and exploitation. I agree the government shouldn’t be meddling (and especially not picking winners based on corruption or PC-ness), but they do a lot more negative meddling than positive. Let’s make sure we kill THAT simultaneously or beforehand.
The media follows her every step uninvited and liberal pawns spin it to make her a media whore. It’s amazing the stupidity of some.
She’s touring the country she loves! Many families have taken their children on trips touring the country. When my European relatives visited they had their list of ‘must sees’ for us to take them to visit and they aren’t Americans nor really love America.
I truly believe she doesn’t know if she will run. In fact, I heard Trump say the same thing today speaking about their get together over pizza and meeting her mom/dad and children - and he spoke of her great love for our country.
Bike riding in DC on Memorial Day with the Vets is a once in a life experience for most - and very cool. And, moreso, for someone who loves this country and our military.
I guess you don't take the time to know Sarah's position. Why don't you go to PalinTV and listen to Sarah's response to Obama's position. You would learn that she does NOT support the removal of tax incentives. She explains clearly that they are not subsidies.
The last thing she would do is burden Americans with higher taxes or more government.
She was criticized for not doing enough to start up a campaign. So she goes on a testing the waters tour and she gets criticized for doing to much.
Only by people watching their candidates lose ground because of it.
They’re going to start whining any minute about ‘campaign finance laws’ and Sarah ‘not following the rules’. I’m betting Mitt is the first to break down and do that, since she’s overshadowing his ‘big announcement’ tomorrow.
Welcome to the party Sarah. Tim Pawlenty said basically the same thing a week or so ago in Iowa.
A lot of hostility toward the oil (energy) industry is regional and political. Ted Kennedy's postures on the subject over the years were proof of that.
The oil industry is too Southern and too conservative. Ergo, hatred, contempt, and obloquy in all the Northeastern States. And taxes.
She is offering the U.S. oil industry a "last chance" to compete, at least within U.S. borders.
What people don't realize is that the petroleum industry is beingcoming increasingly statalized worldwide, and has already for 15 years now been dominated by very large state-run entities.
Brazil's Petrobras (Petroleos Brasileiros) has been in the news, but it is only one of many large, statal energy companies. Peru, Malaysia, Indonesia, all the Arab countries, Mexico, Norway, even Canada have "state" oil companies. In addition, several other large energy concerns (BP, Britgas, Elf Aquitaine, ENI/Agip, Gazprom) are "semi-statal" and prone to political interference and direction (or misdirection, as in the case of Venezuela's PDVSA and Italy's ENI, which had a serious political scandal several years ago).
State oil companies and governmental departments now dominate international energy trade, but people in the States, thanks to yellow-press malreportage and underreportage, still think Exxon is the Colossus of Rhodes, and people like Boone Pickens are big stuff.
In the total market, Exxon is not a major player. Not any more. The Seven Sisters and the American-dominated oil industry of 40 years ago have been history for years now, and the U.S. has lost -- lost, squandered, piddled away -- a priceless asset because of political hatred fostered by people like Ted Kennedy.
She said: "I think all our energy subsidies need to be re-looked at today and eliminated."
Have you read Palin's book: Going Rogue,/i>? "All" subsidies would include the following. Take a look:
In subsidies per unit of energy actually produced, gas-fired electricity generation got 25 cents per megawatt-hour in 2007 subsidies; coal received 44 cents (mostly for clean technology research). By comparison, wind turbines got 23.4 dollars and photovoltaic solar received 24.3 dollars per MWh.
One project alone – the $2-billion Shepherds Flat wind farm in north-central Oregon will transfer $500 million in hard cash subsidies, plus a subsidized loan guarantee of $1.1 billion to White House friend Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric and their partners. These OPM subsidies equal 80% of the $2-billion in tax breaks that Senators Reid and Schumer are so exercised about. The contract was GE’s largest in FY 2009. Ethanol subsidies totaled nearly $5 billion in 2010.
Shepherds Flat will be the world’s largest wind farm: 338 gigantic 2.5 MW turbines, 97 miles of new roads and 167 miles of high voltage transmission lines sprawling across 32,000 to 83,000 acres (up to twice the size of Washington, DC) of the scenic Columbia River Gorge area. At best, the turbines may average one-third of the 2.5 MW stamped on their nameplates. At the whim of the winds, the farm will generate electricity at wild swings between zero and the turbines’ combined rated capacity of 845 MW.
That’s about one-quarter to one-half of what a single modern coal, gas or nuclear power plant generates 90-95% of the time, day after day, all year long … from a tiny fraction of the wind farm’s land area.
If not subsidies, then higher taxes to the consumer. Subsidies are a shell game.
If you believe in private enterprise and free markets, the government should not manipulate business.
Palin is a student of Reaganomics, and sure as hell knows more about energy than you or I do.
Meanwhile Romney backs government price manipulation for ethanol, as he did for health care in Mass.
More to the point would be to eliminate the corporate income tax and regulatory agencies.
That's what I said.
I agree. catfish1957 apparently loves government intervention.
Where were the oil subsidies in Beaumont Texas, Titusville, PA, Long Beach, CA at the turn of the century?
All subsidies are a gimmick... including the sacrosanct farm subsidies.
I think Gov. Palin shares something with the late great Reagan. She has a deep instinct for economic freedom and what it has meant to America.
Unlike Romney and, to a great extent, Bush I and II, she wants to reform, not "govern" aka manipulate.
That is not what I said, and you know it. I have no problem ending energy subsidies, as long as the government butts it's head out of the rest of our business, and also ends subsidies for everything else.
Thank you and finally some discuss with someone who understands our industry, and not someone feeding off the latest Palin sound bite.
State owned oil companies constitute a self subusidized competitor that have advantages in a competitive market. Add the internal enemy (the government) and we (oil as in Standard Oil descendants and smaller players) are facing a stacked deck. Very few remember back in the 80's when oil reached the $10-15/bbl, and it's associated impact. Considering the economic conditons right now, one more bust like that would eliminate probably 50-75% of the companies in this business right now.
Ms. Palin talks of driving oil prices down to the floor. I guess she doesn't think that is government intervention. In any case, she may not like the consequences of what that brings. Foreign interests drilling for our oil on our soil and waters is not a favorable scenario.
I agree. The government cannot reconsile selective subsidies with "equal protection under the law" anyway. They should NOT be picking winners and losers. It stinks of graft and corruption.
One-half gallon of oil in the form of pesticides per bushel of corn would cost $2 to $3 per bushel. If this were true -- and it clearly isn't -- it should be enough to illustrate to literally anyone that the price of petroleum is quite literally the ONLY thing driving corn prices. And this idiotic piece of agitprop -- from a hydrogen "energy" advocacy site -- also shows the guy in the encounter suit spraying chemical fertilizer, a sight that I've never been privileged to see, what with me *growing up on a farm*.
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