NEWS FLASH

Romney Defends Major Tax Cut For Big Oil | The Romney campaign released a statement Thursday defending his plan to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. The plan amounts to a major tax cut for Big Oil, a Center for American Progress Action Fund report finds. The 10 percent drop would save the five biggest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell — $2.3 billion a year in taxes, on top of the billions in tax breaks and deductions currently in place. The Romney campaign said that, with the new tax cut, “…our job creators are better able to grow their businesses, put people back to work, and turn our economy around.” In 2011, these five companies made $375 million in profits every day, or $261,000 per minute. In order to preserve these remarkable profit margins, Big Oil is putting this money to good use, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into anti-clean energy ads.