McCain likes giving his starving oil buddies federal tax dollars: Republican corporate welfare helps keep McCain in office.
Oil and gasoline prices are setting all-time records, helping the five biggest publicly traded oil companies in the world earn a staggering $148 billion in profits over the past year. At the same time, the U.S. government continues to provide massive subsidies to oil companies.
These subsidies for some of the most profitable companies in the world, given directly and through the tax breaks, are a waste of taxpayer dollars and continue tax dollar investments in oil instead of shifting incentives to clean energy alternatives. Subsidies for the oil industry preserve our dependence on oil, which leaves our economy vulnerable to price surges, our security vulnerable to hostile oil-rich nations, and our climate vulnerable to greenhouse gas pollution.
If elected president, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) would provide $39 billion in federal help for oil and gas companies over the next five years. Some of these subsidies already exist: McCain supports the continuation of many of the current subsidies, which will total $33 billion over the next five years according to a study by Friends of the Earth, “Big Oil, Bigger Giveaways.” While McCain would repeal some of these subsidies, he would also pass a corporate tax cut that would be worth more than $22 billion to America’s five largest oil companies over the next five years.
[From The True Cost of McCain’s Oil Industry Subsidies for Every State]
It isn’t as if the federal government needs money, no not at all.