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GOP Rep. Webster Calls For An End To Oil Subsidies And ‘Corporate Welfare’

ThinkProgress filed this report from a town hall meeting in Orlando, FL.

In March, the entire House Republican Caucus voted to protect oil subsidies, which total $40 billion over 10 years. Now, it appears that numerous Republicans are questioning the wisdom of those subsidies, especially with high gas prices and soaring profits for oil companies.

One such congressman is Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL). ThinkProgress spoke with Webster prior to his raucous town hall meeting yesterday and asked him about whether he’d like to see oil subsidies ended, as House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) initially called for and then later backtracked. Webster was unequivocal in his support for ending subsidies to oil companies, saying that further cutting “any kind of corporate welfare is on the table”:

KEYES: Yesterday, Speaker Boehner came out and said that oil companies ought to be paying their fair share in order to close down this debt. Is that something you would join him in? Would you like to see those subsidies ended?

WEBSTER: The Ryan plan includes tax reform and it includes lowering of corporate taxes, but also spreading out the base so those who are not paying are paying. So that’s already included in the plan. I think he was only saying in a specific manner what that plan already does.

KEYES: So you’d like to see those subsidies to oil companies ended?

WEBSTER: Yes, any kind of corporate welfare is on the table, right now. For sure.

Watch it:

As laudable as Webster’s call for an end to corporate welfare is, the fact remains that he joined every single House Republican in voting to protect subsidies for oil companies. Still, as oil companies rack up extraordinary profits, more GOPers like Webster might be reconsidering whether the government ought to continue doling out oil subsidies.

Yglesias

Endgame

Angel vs eel:

“Harper’s gas-hike warning based on incorrect tweet”.

— NDP candidate has been on vacation in Las Vegas amidst polling surge that’s made him a plausible MP.

— DC streetcar, brought to you by Qatar?

— Premodern lifestyles basically suck.

— Gas price pie chart.

— What does the NDP surge mean for currency speculators?

Pre-election Canadian music mania continues with Metric’s “Stadium Love”, a song that sounds much better if you upgrade from the crappy earphones that came with your iPod to something decent.

Politics

Storms Kill Over 250 Americans In States Represented By Climate Pollution Deniers

Today, news agencies are still tallying reports of deaths from the most devastating storm system in the United States in decades:

Dozens of massive tornadoes tore a town-flattening streak across the South, killing at least 250 people in six states and forcing rescuers to carry some survivors out on makeshift stretchers of splintered debris. Two of Alabama’s major cities were among the places devastated by the deadliest twister outbreak in nearly 40 years.

“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”

The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.

Update

@weatherchannel:

Death toll continues to rise. Now stands at 267. Alabama accounts for 180 of these. #severe

Yglesias

Adventures In Social Media

Spencer Ackerman:

It started out with a leggy, bikini-clad avatar. She said she was a missile expert — the “1st Lady of Missiles,” in fact — but sometimes suggested she worked with the CIA. With multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, she earned a following of social media-crazed security wonks. Then came the accusations of using sex appeal for espionage.

Now everyone involved in this weird network is adjusting their story in one way or another, demonstrating that even people in the national security world have trouble remembering one of the basic rules of the internet: Not everyone is who they say they are.

Just a great read.

Yglesias

Robots and Utopia

There’s something very strange about the fact that two persist worries I hear about the advance of technology are that robot labor will be able to replace human labor in market production and also that digital copying will make it impossible to get paid to create cultural products. Well, if robots are able to drastically eliminate the need to pay human beings to provide physical goods and services, then there’ll be plenty of people with plenty of time and their hands to create cultural goods for free.

We’re talking about a future in which there’s neither a shortage of goods nor a shortage of people. We’re talking, in other words, about utopia. For whatever reason, optimism is coded as a rightwing attitude in the contemporary United States, but people with their origins on the right ought to recognize these trends as the abundance of goods that makes it both possible and necessary to transcend capitalism and move to a world of from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs. Market exchange is a response to scarcity, and in many domains we’re moving past scarcity.

Our main troubles come not from these fields impacted by technological change but precisely from those areas where we do face scarcity but aren’t applying market price mechanisms. The atmosphere, for example, has only so much capacity to absorb carbon dioxide emissions. Only so many cars can fit on the 101 at rush hour. Pricing those things would improve quality of life and generate some of the revenue we need to build utopia.

Security

Rep. Buck McKeon Complains That Obama’s Military Spending Cuts Are ‘Dangerous’ But He Doesn’t Say Why

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has been attacking President Obama for wanting to reduce military spending. Earlier this month, the President announced nearly $400 billion in security spending cuts over the next 12 years and McKeon is not happy. However, it’s unclear why.

McKeon, along with other right wing war hawks criticizing Obama’s proposal, doesn’t really have any specific reasons as to why the United States should continue senseless spending on the military. (Here are a few good reasons why defense spending should be cut, and how it can be done.)

Take for example, his op-ed today in USA Today. McKeon says Obama’s proposal is “dangerous,” carves “out critical capabilities,” “will weaken our nation,” “leave us vulnerable to attack,” and will “intensify the stresses on our troops while eliminating the resources available to them.” But he doesn’t say how. Not once does McKeon offer any evidence to back these claims up (he also tries to use Defense Secretary Robert Gates for cover, but not only is Gates leaving the top DOD post, he signaled last week that he’s on board with Obama’s cuts.)

So what else does McKeon have? Lack of planning:

President Obama’s announcement earlier this month on Pentagon cuts was nothing short of shocking. It came after little consultation with his Defense Department. There appears to have been no consideration of threats, of deterrence, of logistics, or capabilities — or even the effect such cuts would have on our three wars, our troops, or our national security.

Obama’s plan may have come with little consulting because, as the President said in his speech, the specific military spending cuts will be the result of consulting with the Defense Department. “We’re going to have to conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world,” Obama said, “And I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.”

So in the end, McKeon doesn’t have any real reason why military spending shouldn’t be reduced. His argument seems to be: just because. Meanwhile, President Obama today announced he would nominate CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Gates. As one expert noted, Panetta moving to DOD “probably means bigger cuts to the Defense budget…Panetta will be more interested in getting along with the White House, which must find ways of cutting the deficit.” Maybe McKeon is a little nervous. Why? Perhaps in the future, he’ll lay out the specifics.

Politics

BREAKING: Facing Trump Backlash, Groupon Announces It Will Stop Sponsoring The Apprentice

Potential GOP candidate Donald Trump has been peddling false and malicious attacks on President Obama. He gains much of his prominence from his prime-time NBC show The Apprentice. This morning at 9:30 am on Twitter, ThinkProgress urged concerned citizens to ask Groupon to stop sponsoring the show.


Dear @Groupon: Are you going to continue to sponsor The Apprentice and support Donald Trump + his malicious attacks on our President?less than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

Moments ago, a Groupon representative announced that, in the future, they will block their advertisements from appearing on The Apprentice website.

You can contact Enterprise Rental Car, which is telling customers they don’t sponsor The Apprentice, but are currently advertising on their website.

Update

Groupon ads previously appeared on The Apprentice website. After hearing a bunch of complaints today, Groupon announced that they will not be advertising on The Apprentice website in the future. But Groupon spokesperson Julie Mossler does not consider placing website advertisements a “sponsorship.” In apparently related news, she also says the company will not offer Groupons for abortions. You can read Ms. Mossler’s statement here.


Update

,Bloomberg News picks up the story: “Groupon Won’t Place ‘Apprentice’ Site Ads Amid Complaints


[updat

Yglesias

Why It’s Hard To Cut Military Spending

Ezra Klein says “There’s something about the way we defer to the military on military matters in ways that we don’t defer to other agencies on their areas of expertise that makes me very, very uncomfortable.”

Unfortunately for America, he’s more or less alone in this. As Gallup is always finding, Americans have enormous confidence in the military while they despite both members of congress and reporters. So even though in the abstract cuts to defense spending poll decently, the basic reality is that a member of congress who goes toe to toe with a bunch of generals is going to get creamed. One of the most telling incidents in recent American politics was that hearing where Senator Barbara Boxer chided Brigadier General Michael Walsh for not addressing her by her proper title. This was universally regarded as a gaffe by Boxer. After all, she’s just a lowly Senator, who is she to disrespect a hard-working general?

Politics

Rep. Barletta Laughs At Constituents Who Question His Support For Oil Subsidies

At a time when oil companies are posting record profits, Republican congressmen across the country are being challenged by constituents about their support for roughly $4 billion in annual tax incentives for the oil industry. Last month, every single Republican voted to preserve these subsidies, but under pressure, several GOP leaders, including Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), have admitted that Big Oil shouldn’t continue to receive taxpayer-funded subsidies. But yesterday Congressman Lou Barletta (R–PA) took at different approach: scoffing at the idea.

When a constituent asked him how he could vote for tax breaks for the oil industry, the congressman simply laughed at the woman and shook his head, ignoring her question. Another constituent then responded angrily, telling Barletta, “You’re our congressman, don’t laugh at us!”

Barletta continued to smirk in amusement as constituents began to debate one another, at one point even turning his back on the crowd and rifling through papers as he appeared to completely disengage from the discussion. Watch it:

This is not the first time the freshman Republican has responded dismissively to tough questioning at home. At a town hall event one week ago, constituents confronted Barletta about his vote to end Medicare through the Ryan budget plan. He was rebuked by a 64-year-old woman who wanted to know why he backed “a plan that will destroy Medicare.” The congressman’s office brushed aside the complaint and tried to smear the woman, claiming she was part of a coordinated Democratic campaign to disrupt the event.

The congressman’s condescending attitude toward his constituents’ concerns is disconcerting, but not altogether surprising, given the generous support he’s received from oil companies. In the 2010 election cycle, the oil and gas industry was one of the largest contributors to Barletta’s campaign, kicking in more than $30,000.

Today, two of the world’s largest oil companies, Exxon and Shell, announced nearly $18 billion in profits in the first quarter, thanks to higher gas prices around to the world. Democratic congressional leaders Sen. Harry Reid (R-NV) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have called on Republicans to hold votes on ending the subsidies.

Update

This afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) rejected Pelosi’s request to hold a vote on eliminating oil subsidies. “The Speaker wants to increase the supply of American energy to lower gas prices and create millions of American jobs,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in an email. “Raising taxes will not do that.”

Economy

Exxon Whines About Push To Cut Its Subsidies On Same Day It Announces $11 Billion First-Quarter Profit

Oil giant Exxon-Mobil today announced that it made almost $11 billion in profits through the first three months of this year, a nearly 70 percent increase in its first quarter profit from last year. Democrats in Congress have, for years, been trying to cut the nearly $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies that go to oil companies every year, and cited today’s profits as one more justification for removing this taxpayer-funded largesse.

“We have to take away the subsidies for these five major oil companies,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “There’s no need for these subsidies. The companies have broken records [with their] profits.” Exxon-Mobil’s vice president for public and government affairs Ken Cohen responded today by whining that cutting oil company subsidies amounts to a tax increase:

“Over the last week as earnings season has approached, the Democratic Party leadership again talked about removing what they call $4 billion in oil industry subsidies,” [ExxonMobil’s vice president for public and government affairs Ken] Cohen said. “But what they really mean is that they want to increase our taxes by taking away long-standing deductions for our industry while leaving these same deductions in place for other sectors of the economy.”

Exxon, of course, paid absolutely nothing into the Federal Treasury in 2009, while still receiving these subsidies. And the rest of Exxon’s Big Oil brethren, while not doing quite as well, all made billions off of the rising price of oil. In fact, the five biggest oil companies — Exxon, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and BP — made a combined $32.7 billion in the last three months:

At the same time that sky-high oil prices are helping Big Oil make a killing, they are slowing an already sluggish economic recovery. Gross Domestic Product grew at a paltry 1.8 percent last quarter, and rising gas prices “have nearly neutralized the 2011 payroll tax cuts that were intended as a stimulus.”

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