http://www.boughtbybigoil.com/
Tax loopholes that save the oil industry $5 billion were removed from the original Senate version of the $70 billion GOP tax bill in 2006 but under pressure Congressional negotiators put them back in the final bill. The $5 billion for big-oil could have been used instead to partially offset an increase in middle class taxes. Not only did Wicker vote for the final tax bill with the big-oil tax breaks, but he also voted against a Democratic motion to repeal the big-oil tax breaks. [Republican Policy Committee, 2/7/06; Washington Post, 4/26/06; Joint Tax Committee, 5/9/06; Vote 135, 5/10/06; Vote 109, 4/27/06, USA Today, 4/27/06]They even have some nice graphs that display the profits for Big Oil in contrast with your rising prices at the pump.
Let's not forget that yesterday, when Wicker (along with Thad Cochran and other GOP senators) voted to block funding the troops, it was part of a Republican hissy fit over pushing through legislation that would be beneficial to his oil industry masters.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, plenty of Democrats have Big Oil PAC money - but certainly not to the same degree. Essentially, this is consistent with the GOP/Reagan-era mantra: starve the government. The goal is to create policies that help businesses while cutting taxes to starve pubic infrastructure. We see how successful it's been the last 7.5 years.
ReplyDeletenice comment BPA, thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteStarve the beast showed its ugly head for the whole world to see on August 29, 2005, and the days thereafter.
And actually, Haley's been working that strategy at home for quite some time. Today's Medicare crisis definitely carries a sense of deja vu.
ReplyDeleteEverybody's in everybody's pocket.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topcontribs.php?Bkdn=DemRep&Cycle=2008
Jeff, by "Starving the beast" you must mean the hundreds of millions of federal dollars sent to rebuild levees that never made it to those levees thanks to an inherently corrupt system of city and state government that oversaw their maintenance and structural integrity? The majority of "starvation" that was done to those levees was by their direct overseers.
Reagen and the GOP:
I assume that when ya'll refer to the "starvation" that occured during the Reagen era you are referring to a Democratic congress that denied such funding for infrastructure?