A response to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on oil "subsidies"

[reaganator]

Senator Sherrod Brown's recent comments on reducing the federal budget deficit; > > "Cut $20 billion in spending by ending taxpayer-funded subsidies to the five biggest oil companies."

$20 billion is a ridiculous amount to cite. The figure the other Democrat Socialist Statists use when demagoging this fabricated issue is around $4.3 billion in so-called government "subsidies". > > Senator Brown and President Obama talk about huge "subsidies" as if taxpayers are signing billion dollar checks to oil and gas companies. But oil companies do not get subsidies. Rather, like every other business, they are allowed to take tax deductions for the expenses they incur. A tax deduction and a government subsidy are not the same. > > The domestic manufacturing tax deduction that oil and gas companies receive is a general tax deduction that goes to all domestic manufacturing. Producers of clothing, roads, electricity, water and many other goods produced in the United States are all eligible for the manufacturers nine percent tax deduction. Congress already imposed a tax hike for oil and natural gas companies by freezing the deduction at six percent for just that industry. > > The only tax in which the oil companies seems to get special treatment compared to other industries is intangible drilling costs. The amount of that subsidy would be $0.78 billion per year-enough to fund less than two hours of federal spending in 2011, and not even half the amount we are lending a foreigned-owned and state-owned oil company for drilling offshore in Brazil. > > Oil companies already pay tax rates of 40-50 percent of income. For one company, Exxon, in one quarter of one year, that amount was over $8 billion, or almost double the so-called "subsidy" for all oil companies for an entire year. > > Profit is the amount of money a company has made. Profit margin is the amount of money your company or business has earned as a percentage of total revenue. The profit margin for the gas and oil industry is around 6.2 percent. > > When politicians use the words "subsidies" and "tax deductions" interchangeably it is a deliberate attempt to mislead Americans. A purposeful, calculated lie. > > Senator Brown and President Obama are Leftist anti-capitalists who openly advocate government "solutions" and government control. They attack the oil industry and its product because oil is the lifeblood of the American capitalist free market economy. Oil is the fuel of Freedom.

[reaganator]

There is no federal revenue problem.

There is a federal spending problem.

How would causing the spenders to have more money to spend solve the spending problem?

No one can actually believe this way, it must be purposeful and deliberate destruction.

[octex]

ANY process that reduces current or planned future tax revenues is touted as a subsidy by the progressives. Another example of them being still in control of the language of the debate.
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I’ve even heard a couple of Dem Reps and Sens, as well as Dem Strategists on cable news, flatly state that the Federal Gov’t. is subsidizing home owners by permitting them to deduct mortgage interest. Some feel that eliminating that deduction would add tremendously to the Federal revenue.

[Okieshooter]

Yes I am aware of that as I was subject to it once when I lost $150,000 in a motorcycle shop that I once owned was only going to be able to write off $21,000 (3,000 over 7 yrs). That in my opinion is entirely unfair.

Fortunatly I was starting a new business and was able by keeping the other corporation active, and was able to transfer the losses to the new corp as management fees over a few years. But most people are not in that kind of position.

[originalbuckeye]

The Gov't wants to end all deductions in the name of gaining revenue for itself. So lots less money in everyone's pocket. And our economy will hit rock bottom. Then the citizenry will go crying to the Gov't 'take care of me too, please'. ENOUGH!! Leave us alone to prosper or not! Now!

[Recon Dad]

Here are the real numbers......

Big Oil and Tax Breaks
By Randall Hoven
To hear the president and Democrats talk, you’d think that Big Oil was sucking the Treasury dry with huge subsidies. Almost a year ago I wrote about the federal government’s “subsidies” to Big Oil. I said then, “They are all tax ‘breaks’... about $4.3 billion per year — about 0.2% of this year’s deficit and enough to fund about 10 hours of current US government spending.”
I was wrong. The tax breaks for all fossil fuels was not $4.3B in 2011. It was only $2.5B — about 0.19% of that year’s deficit, and enough to fund only six hours of U.S. government spending. The source for such heresy? The Congressional Budget Office.
Just to be clear, that $2.5B was not just for Big Oil, but also for Big Coal and Big Gas: all fossil fuels. Here, more exactly, are those subsidies, in the CBO’s words.
• “Expensing of exploration and development costs for oil and natural gas.” ($0.8B)
• “Option to expense 50% of qualified property used to refine liquid fuels.” ($0.8B)
• “Option to expense investment costs on the basis of gross income rather than on production.” ($0.9B)

[RightLady]

He has been a Senator from Ohio for at least two terms. He used to be on that socialist list that West is publishing, but some way or other Brown had his name removed. His ads are really trashing Josh Mandel. one of them asserts that a PAL of mandel is involved in a scandel. Of course Brown had no problem Voting for Obama who has a pal that was a murderer. They have accused Mandel of being accused od some scandel too.