WASHINGTON - Lawmakers are walking a tightrope. With gasoline prices soaring they want to appear tough on oil companies.Meanwhile.. in a related story..
But apparently not too tough.
While congressional Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate promised to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks for major oil companies, the House in a largely symbolic vote Thursday seemed to move in the other direction.
House Republicans refused to go along with a proposal that called on House members to accept a Senate-passed repeal of $5 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks. They are the subject of intense negotiations between the House and Senate on a broad tax bill.
SAN RAMON, Calif. - Chevron Corp.'s first-quarter profit soared 49 percent to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices.This is actually a fairly interesting study in Democracy, isn't it? Well, lets clarify - we live in a constitutional republic. After all, Americans vote in these representatives, right? It's quite clear that the Republican party is exceptionally tied to mega-corp, and purely represent the interests of wealthy Americans. They simply support the "trickle down" theory put forward during the Reagan administration.
Now, we have an executive branch controlled by an oil family (Bush), and congress controlled by the Republican party. The result is war, and breath taking oil company profits. So what is the net downside for those in control of the government? None that I can see.
Even if Republicans lose Congress next fall, and even if they lose the next presidential election, they've set a new standard for energy costs. That can't be undone. National political office isn't about "serving" the American public. It's merely a means to an end, and that end is money. Why on earth would they go into public office otherwise? See below about hooker-gate. Why would you expose yourself to that level of scrutiny?
So the question of democracy; Does it work? The expectation is that the right decisions are made if they are made by majority rules. You'd think that in the "information age", we'd all be smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and know that when you put people in the oil business in control of the federal government, oil prices will go up. Americans shot themselves in the foot on that one.
Why?
I have my own theory of course.. but I'm curious what other explanation there could be. Sheer stupidity is an option I suppose. Ignorance? Quite possibly so. Caring more about establishing a theocracy in this nation, and gaining control of everyone's behavior rather than their own economic interests? Well.. of course that's my bet.
6 comments:
So what is the point of cutting billions in tax relief from the oil companies. Won't they just pass that along to the consumer, making prices go even higher?
I can certainly understand the outrage at them raking in record profits while prices soar, but I am a little cloudy on how taking money away from them and into the government is going to help out at the pump. Can someone smarter than me explain how that would help?
So you're saying that the oil companies are going to insist on their profit margins regardless. Of course, that's like saying we should give Microsoft tax breaks so they can decrease the price of Windows. Doesn't make much sense.
You may end up paying more anyway, but as a matter of principal, the government shouldn't subsidize profits. The oil companies should be investigated for anti-trust practices, and it might be necessary to regulate the industry...
But then.. you know.. really high gas prices is not a bad thing in the sense that it might be the only way to get people to be "greener"... and as I said.. it doesn't really affect me that much even though my car only get 18mpg.. I don't do many miles, and I don't really care about a small budget item like gas..
The big picture is important and this just makes Americans more pissed at the Republicans, and that may have long term benefits.
I get the "punish them" part, and that we shouldn't subsidize them while they are making huge profits. Totally agree with you there. I was just wondering if there was a rationale that it would lower gas prices somehow if we did that, and that's what I didn't see...which is pretty much the same thing you're saying.
I do think that they would try to pass the lost tax money onto consumers if they could.
And speaking of getting "greener", I got called a "hippie, tree-hugging liberal" on another message board recently while we were discussing global warming.
As if being a hippie, a tree hugger, or a liberal is a bad thing.
I thought it was particularly funny because I was called a "fascist neocon" about something on the same site less than a year ago.
It's just funny that when you take a position on an issue, people will assume you are of the party that usually advocates said position.
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