On Wed, 07 May 2008 21:26:55 -0600, Jim <no_one@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>Excuse me???
>
>All these points are relevant.
No, they aren't.
>And...so if you get rid of the tax subsidies to big oil companies, and
>the price for gasoline goes up, what are you going to do about it?
>Increase the taxes? And if the price goes up more?
Once again, irrelevant. We're not discussing the cost of oil. We're
discussing tax fairness. The current law gives a tax discount to oil
companies. Companies making $126B per year don't deserve a special tax
incentive. End of story. Retail prices are another matter.
>If your original post said "I feel the tax subsidies to oil companies
>need to be discontinued because ... and it will cause ... to happen", I
>probably would have not replied. But when you parroted many Democrats'
>position, blaming "GWB" and "big oil", I realized you weren't really
>looking for a solution, but just wanted to stir up anger against
>Republicans. And you didn't think anyone would call you on this.
I don't care for Republicans or Democrats in general -at least not the
party mainstream. I do call a spade a spade. The current
administration and their neo-con allies have fought to preserve
significant discounts to oil companies. In addition, they have
consistently fought to divert tax dollars at an unprecedented rate to
private companies that they favor.
That's not democracy, it's not capitalism, it's fascism. It's
repugnant to democracy. It's revolting to all true conservatives,
liberals, and patriots alike.
>
>If you want to blame someone, I'm sure there's more than enough blame to
>go around on both sides of the aisle. And how does anger and blame help
>solve the problem? Yes, it's easy to get others on the anger-and-blame
>bandwagon; everyone's upset about the price of gas, including me. The
>real problem is that our country needs to work together to develop and
>implement workable solutions for this problem. We need to put every
>possible solution on the table and look at it objectively, and pick what
>works and what works best.
Again, the aisle has nothing to do with it.
>In regards to "big oil", two things we could do is nationalize the oil
>industry (along with the health-care system). Or we could sell off our
>oil industry to foreigners and get out of the oil business entirely (and
>see what that would do to gas prices).
I haven't seen anyone floating a proposal to nationalize oil. I do see
tax unfairness.
>I wish we could have had someone from "Big Oil" join this discussion to
>hear his side of the story. "Big Oil" needs to be part of this
>discussion too.
I've spoken to people working the wells, inside research labs at big
oil, industry consultants, and players at the wholesale/retail level.
None of them defend the tax breaks except for small drillers who may
actually deserve a break. Only upper management defends them as
legitimate along with their neo-con allies.
>By the way, I think if we could tap into most of our undeveloped oil
>reserves, we could make quite a dent in our needs for energy -- not
>forever, but for quite a while. And I am not connected with the oil
>industry--I work for the U.S. Geological Survey. We are not permitted
>to own oil stock.
If you know anything about oil, then you know that it will be 10 years
before there oil from any new Arctic Drilling could be brought in,
environmental considerations not withstanding. That will have no
effect on the current situation.
It will also not affect the core issue I've mentioned multiple times:
tax fairness.
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