No freaking way! I mean, we do live in a capitalist society and all, but do we have to have our faces rubbed in the shit so frequently? Can someone remind me exactly why the oil companies deserve all this largesse again? Other than electing Deadeye Dick and his little hand-puppet/pal Incurious George, that is.
U.S. Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies
The government is on the verge of one of the biggest oil and gas giveaways in U.S. history, some 7 billion dollars over five years.New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.
Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.
and that's not all, folks....
Mr. Bush and House Republicans are trying to kill a one-year, $5 billion windfall profits tax for oil companies that the Senate passed last fall.Moreover, the projected largess could be just the start. Last week, Kerr-McGee Exploration and Development, a major industry player, began a brash but utterly serious court challenge that could, if it succeeds, cost the government another $28 billion in royalties over the next five years.
In what administration officials and industry executives alike view as a major test case, Kerr-McGee told the Interior Department last week that it planned to challenge one of the government's biggest limitations on royalty relief if it could not work out an acceptable deal in its favor. If Kerr-McGee is successful, administration projections indicate that about 80 percent of all oil and gas from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico would be royalty-free.
“It's one of the greatest train robberies in the history of the world,” said Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who has fought royalty concessions on oil and gas for more than a decade. “It's the gift that keeps on giving.”
One of the greatest scams ever perpetrated - convincing lower and middle class Americans that the Republicans were on their side, despite much evidence to the contrary. John Kelso had a nice line (via Alternate Brain, I still despise the Austin-American Statesman, and their overly-intrusive registration process):
Which makes me wonder. For deer, hunters put out deer corn. When your quarry is a Republican, what do you put out? Piles of cash?
Tags: Business, /tax, /Worst_President
