Picking Winners And Losers With The Tax Code

One of the things that would be really good about passing Paul Ryan’s budget plan (it won’t happen–but it would be really good) would be that the government would lose its power to pick winners and losers in the American economy. That’s one of the reasons Paul Ryan’s budget will never pass–Congress and the President do not want to give up the power to control people through the tax code. However, every now and then, someone in the Senate actually does something smart in terms of taxes. The Senate (in a 51-47 vote)  has nixed the President’s plan to raise taxes on oil companies (which of course would raise the price of gasoline at the pump).

The New American posted a few thoughts on the Senate vote today:

“This bill is pretty simple: we end wasteful subsidies to the big five oil companies and we use those proceeds to invest in clean energy, in creating jobs, and reducing the deficit,” Menendez said Monday when introducing the bill. “I think the American people are sick and tired of paying ridiculously high gasoline prices at the pump and then paying big oil again with … taxpayer subsidies.”

However, as Bob Adelman asserted last May in The New American, there is a grave difference between tax breaks and what Obama and Menendez characterize as “subsidies.” “The echo chamber of the mainstream media and liberal Democrats merely confirms their attempt to confuse the issue to promote their agenda,” Adelman affirmed. “Subsidies and tax breaks are different entities entirely, and getting the terms wrong means getting it all wrong.”

As stated above–these are not subsidies–subsidies are what we are paying to alternative energy companies that keep going broke or shipping their business to China. Not only are these not subsidies–they are tax breaks that all companies routinely get.

The article concludes:

But Menendez goes a step further, and calls the oil tax breaks “wasteful subsidies.” Is this contrary to the clean-energy industry’s un-wasteful subsidies? Obama’s Energy Department has dished out billions of dollars in “green” subsidies, to companies like SpectraWatt, Eastern Energy, Beacon Power, Evergreen Solar, and the controversial Solyndra — which all ended up in bankruptcy. These five companies, along with seven others, are now in financial disarray, after collectively reaping more than $6.5 billion in taxpayer-backed government assistance.

In effect, one might suggest that Obama and Menendez are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction.

The Obama Administration has never actually had a successful energy policy. It is unrealistic to think that they will develop one at this point.

 

 

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