On Thursday, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) took to the floor of the House of Representatives to mock those who are outraged about the protection of subsidies for Big Oil, while services for Main Street Americans are slashed. Think Progress has the story.
Last month, the entire House Republican caucus voted to defend corporate welfare for Big Oil, stopping any attempt to remove billions of dollars of subsidies for the industry. Many of these companies exploit the tax code to pay very little in taxes, with companies like Exxon Mobil paying absolutely nothing in federal corporate income taxes in 2009.
Last week, Posey jokingly called them the “evil oil companies” and said that “corporations don’t pay taxes. Corporations collect taxes.” He instructed critics of Big Oil to “quit trying to play pin the tail on the donkey,” suggesting that they were unfairly targeting the industry:
POSEY: Those evil oil companies, the answer to all our problems is to tax them more. As if the members of this body and the public is stupid enough to think that at the end of the year those big oil companies are just going to write a check for another zillion dollars. Let’s say we tax those evil oil companies another dollar a gallon. They’re not going to write the check, we know what’s going to happen, they’re going to raise the price a dollar a gallon. Or given the corporate greed we sometimes see round it off to two dollars. Corporations don’t pay taxes. Corporations collect taxes. They collect taxes from consumers who ultimately pay the tax. You add a tax to a product and a consumer’s going to pay more. It doesn’t pass the straight face test. I wish we would quit, as the gentleman from the Texas said, quit trying to play pint he tail on the donkey. We know corporations don’t pay taxes. Consumers pay taxes, corporations just collect it.
Watch it:
Exxon Mobil likely appreciates Posey’s defense of their industry. He received $2,000 from their federal PAC during the 2009-2010 election cycle. And his economic argument doesn’t pan out. A Joint Economic Committee report found that “the removal or modification of [one of these subsidies] is unlikely to have any effect on consumer prices for oil and gas.” For the record, 74 percent of Americans favor ending Big Oil subsidies “” people that Posey calls “stupid.”
– A Think Progress cross-post.
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Joe,
How about a image of Posey kneeling before the Koch Brothers(AKA the Sith Lords) and kissing the ring of tea party obedience.
OT – Joe have you seen this? I saw it on TP: “Study: Gas from ‘fracking’ worse than coal on climate”
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/155101-report-gas-from-fracking-worse-than-coal-on-climate
I’d be very interested in your thoughts if you can get a copy of actual paper being submitted.
Honestly I couldn’t have said it better myself.
We know corporations don’t pay taxes, so make them pay, and then punish them if they pass the cost on to consumers.
Ultimately, what he’s saying is true to an extent. But, there are a lot of subtleties he’s leaving out, such as not all tax is actually passed on to the consumer, some is eaten by the corporation, some causes lower dividend pay-outs, some reduces executive compensation…
Really, the big issue always ends up the COMPOSITION OF WHO PAYS the taxes. And that issue causes a lot of screaming. Especially by the Libtards and the Republitards who want their cake without paying for it.
Daniel Ives, thanks for that link.
We will see a big effort from the oil and gas companies to discredit the Cornell study, and the final scientific result could make things very interesting. If gas and the remaining coal plants are poised to bake the planet, rapid transformation of our energy sources will be called for.
The outcome could be a serious struggle for our future, with the truth again on one side, and the money on the other. It will take a huge effort from alternative media, universities, and even Hollywood to win this battle, and win it we must. I’m glad Climate Progress is here to anchor the effort.
Here’s Paul Krugman in today’s new York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&hp
And Nicholas Kristof’s weekend column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10kristof.html?scp=4&sq=nicholas%20d.%20kristof&st=cse
Well, Posey’s right – as far as it goes. If oil corporations are to maintain the level of net, after tax profits they have had over the last decade, they will indeed pass along the tax to consumers. More than half of Exxon-Mobil’s profits have been used to buy back their own stock for the past decade; if that portion of their profits is heavily taxed, then that use of profits will be discouraged – even the conservative demigod, Ronald Reagan, would have conceded that. If they instead elect to invest in genuinely clean energy – well, then we can talk about subsidies.
Second try:
“We know corporations don’t pay taxes. Consumers pay taxes, corporations just collect it.”–I have never understood this line of reasoning. Corporations pay taxes on their PROFITs, not on their revenue. There are any number of ways corporations can lower their profits so as not to pay taxes–sometimes they recognize their profits in foreign countries, but they could also LOWER consumer prices, so that consumers would benefit directly. Alternately, they could hire more people, again lowering their taxes. They could increase R&D spending to claim R&D credits, etc. Raising their prices so that consumers pay their taxes merely increases their taxes and from a tax point of view would be the last thing they would want to do.
“Consumers pay taxes, corporations just collect it.”
So, if I am not buying any gasoline for my electric car, then WHY IN HELL am I supposed to pay tax to make up for that which the oil companies did not? I am not consuming the product, but I’m still paying the damn tax!
The real thrust of the argument is that these guys rally against “market distorting” subsidies for clean energy, conservation and other beneficial causes. But when you threaten Big Oil’s cash cow subsidies, watch out! It is HIGHLY hypocritical of them and it should be pointed out as often as possible that they are only against subsidies that don’t go to their friends.
I read on Wikipedia that Posey worked for NASA for a couple of years. He was laid off.