Forget dying birds. Who cares about poisoned fish? Those sick fishermen? They’ll totally get over it – after all, it was food poisoning, right, Tony Hayward?
What we need in this country is cash. And we can exploit the BP spill to get it.
Democrats in the Senate have come up with a way to plug the holes – not in the Gulf – but in our economy by increasing taxes that oil companies pay. The Senate is proposing a measure to raise the tax on oil produced offshore to 41 cents per barrel. The current tax is 8 cents per barrel. The increase is even more than what was proposed just last month.
The original proposal was targeted “to increase the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund liability cap and to increase the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund solvency.” In other words, the increase would be used to clean up oil spills, you know, should one ever happen. So since we have one and all, it makes sense that we’d bump the tax to pay for the spill.
But when has Congress ever demonstrated sense?
The Senate – especially the Dems in the Senate – have a better idea. Why not tax the oil companies and use it for other stuff? It’s brilliant, no? Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seems to think so. And who’s complaining?
Well, for starters, Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who said, “I think the American people think the oil cleanup trust fund ought to be used to clean up oil spills.”
Oh Mitch (chuckle). Somebody else will clean it up. Perhaps George Clooney will even sponsor a telethon!
Meanwhile, we can *really* clean up by exploiting this tragedy to pay our bills. I mean, for goodness sake, Massachusetts has told us that they’re counting on about $600 million in additional Medicaid reimbursements that we don’t have. That kind of money doesn’t grow on trees. Especially oil-slicked trees.
That kind of money is in the pockets of taxpayers which we can get to by bumping the tax on companies which will be passed onto consumers. The beauty part is that the consumers won’t know what hit them. And even if they do, it’s all BP’s fault (insert maniacal laughter here). Genius, Congress, just genius.
My father in law thinks the oil spill is a conspiracy theory with President Obama as the ring leader… the more this goes on, the more I’m actually starting to think he could be on to something. Why don’t people realize that these taxes are just passed onto us, the consumer!? I knew Congress and the crazy environmentalist would use this against us.
Funny how it all seems so obvious yet millions of people continue to look at what our government is doing to us versus “for” us. Enjoyed your blog and like your writing style.
Thanks Mike!
Well, it’s not like the government hasn’t been using Social Security receipts for other things for 30 years–a cute little program McCain was eager to greatly expand.
No, I agree, no new taxes, we should continue to have cheap, cheap, oil–much cheaper than its true cost, in war, environmental cleanup, etc–liked we’ve had for 30 years. Wouldn’t it be BAD if the consumer price of energy reflected its true cost? Then, GEE, we wouldn’t be able to drive our honkin’ baddass SUVs ignorantly and arrogantly all over the countryside, paying terror states for the priviledge and complaining all the while about all the traffic, like we’ve been doing since before Carter warned us of the disaster of foreign oil dependence, and keep doing it until the dollar crashes and it all blows up in the faces of our children. (Not to mention the apparently not-yet-apparent-enough effects on climate.)
Better to keep it cheap so we can stay in denial. Drill baby drill! Spill baby spill! As long as someone’s getting rich.
Or, you could tax energy to keep gas prices at no lower than, say $4.00 a gallon (about HALF what Europe pays), and have plenty of money for wars-for-profit, fighting terrorism, building a decent train system, reducing the deficit, strengthening the dollar, keeping inflation and interest rates low, funding Socsec, etc, etc, etc. Gee, wouldn’t THAT be TERRIBLE.
If you don’t like the TRUE costs associated with energy use–change your behavior! To start with, give up your damn car!
Hi BakeSales, thanks for your comment. I’m not championing cheap oil at all. I walk to work, my kids attend a neighborhood school and I am most happy outside of a car. That said, I think it’s terrible policy to earmark taxes for one purpose and then use them for another purpose. Taxpayers should have some expectation of how their dollars are being used. To convert policy-driven “trust fund” type taxes into a general fund is acceptable, in my opinion.
So it’s okay to use social security receipts to clean up oil spills (or Wall Street failures) but it’s not okay to use a gas tax, or a bank-paid insurance fund to so do?
Talk about not knowing where your tax dollars are going. I know Republican’s think that using the tax code for incentivizing behavior is bad and they’d rather always have a free-market for-profit free-for-all, but that is very soon going to end VERY BADLY, as recent events have already STRONGLY presaged. Got gold?
BakeSale, did you read the original blog post? Kelly thinks its fine to tax the oil companies to create an oil spill cleanup fund, she thinks its wrong to create some general tax as a knee-jerk reaction in order to fund government spending problems that the government alone created. Of course BP should pay for the oil spill cleanup, however, taxing only oil companies specifically in order to fix general budget woes which are of little relation to oil companies is pretty poor tax policy. Not to mention its not particularly open and transparent policy either.
And you think Republicans feel using the tax code to incentivize behavior is bad? Have you paid any attention to tax policy passed by Republicans? Does preferential capital gains treatment at 15% ring a bell? Maybe that was to incentivize a behavior, namely investing in our economy? How about those tax stimulus checks that we’re sent out under Bush? Trying to increase consumer spending to spur the economy maybe? How about decreased depreciation deductions under the Tax Reform Act of 1986? Most tax policy tries to encourage or discourage some behavior; lets not pretend policy of this sort is inherently one party’s.
It’s nice to see the tax girl get fired up about tax increases. They must have hit a sore button. You normally take a moderate position on these things but it is interesting to see that even moderates are tiring of Washington’s decades long spending spree. The question is, if power shifts back to government cutting fiscal hawks and supply-siders, how long will it take for moderates to feel sorry for dependents of the government when they start crying, because their precious sacred cow is being slaughtered, and abandon the movement for a less controversial position? They sure did fall off the Obama band wagon pretty quickly. Buyers remorse I suppose.
Wait, there’s such a thing as government cutting fiscal hawks anymore? Cause I sure don’t see them…
garagefather, by “dependents on the government” you mean defense contractors, who live in mansions near DC at $500/sqft, right? and career soliders, who also live in mansions on their pensions while also working for the defense contractors? and you also mean all the retirees collecting Medicare in Fla who largely vote Republican, right? and of course the richest americans, who under McCain would have gotten their tax cuts made permanent by raising social security taxes and cutting socsec benefits on the poor and middle class?