The president is going after fossil fuel subsidies for the third straight year. He probably won’t have any more success this time.
When he releases his new budget in two weeks, President Obama will propose doing away with roughly $4 billion a year in subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies, in his third effort to eliminate federal support for an industry that remains hugely profitable.
Previous efforts have run up against bipartisan opposition in Congress and heavy lobbying from producers of oil, natural gas and coal.
Stronger Republican representation in Congress pretty much guarantees that this effort will fail this year and next. It’s not like Jack Gerard sounds worried.
“This is a tired old argument we’ve been hearing for two years now,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s main lobby in Washington. “If the president were serious about job creation, he would be working with us to develop American oil and gas by American workers for American consumers.”
Mr. Gerard noted that there was bipartisan opposition to lifting the tax breaks, adding: “The federal government by no stretch of the imagination subsidizes the oil industry. The oil industry subsidizes the federal government at a rate of $95 million a day.”
Bow down before your masters.
how about this: when the president said in the SOTU that he wanted to fund “investments in our future” with money saved by ending subsidies for the oil companies, did ANYONE believe that was realistic?
I mean c;mon, Boo: you’re the one always talking about “the possible” as opposed to unrealistic expectations. Was repealing those subsidies EVER realistic?
The president, by caving on extending the Bush tax cuts, knew he was blowing a hole in the budget. Unless he’s retarded, he had to have know that meant there’s less/no money for any of those priorities. And unless he’s retarded, he has to know that subsidies to the oil companies are as sacrosanct as military spending. There is no way in hell he expected, or expects, those subsidies to end.
It’s not an “exercise in futility”: it’s an exercise in CYA theatrics, since the decision to let the wealthy keep their much-needed revenue was already made. And yeah, it’s nice to hear him say the right things, but for cryin’ out loud, the money we need for what we need to do is not coming. And it’s probably NEVER coming, because as we both know there’s no chance in hell those tax cuts will be repealed in an election year.
Call a thing what it is, not what you want it to be.
I have to laugh. Oh I have to laugh. If Obama wasn’t trying, he’d be getting slammed for it by the left. See comment above ridiculing Obama for going after unrealistic goals. As IF the things the left has been suggesting for the past X amount of years have been any easier than what Obama is trying to do here.
Laugh away, meh. Laughing is exactly what i did when I read that Obama proposed going after oil subsidies to fund investments that are no unaffordable, thanks to extending the Bush tax cuts.
I feel bad for the dude because he’s in an impossible situtation. But let’s be real here, meh: ending oil subsidies is about as realistic an expectation as a public option for health care. The corporations don’t want it, so the Senators and Reps they own won’t vote for it. Not only the president knows this, but every fuckin’ American with a functioning brain knows it. And since everyone KNOWS that those susbsidies aren’t ending, it’s clear the effort is for show and for political gamesmanship.
I thought the problem with Obama was that he was always too pragmatic and compromising, never giving even rhetorical support for things that he considered impossible. Now the problem is he’s giving rhetorical support for things he should know are impossible?
Or could it be that during the first two years of his presidency, when he had a big majority in Congress, Obama concentrated on getting things done and now in the second two years of his presidency, when he doesn’t have a big majority in Congress, Obama is going to concentrate on campaigning, framing, and trying to box in the Republicans? I mean everybody’s always telling me that messaging is part of the President’s job.
that left a mark. Spot on.
That didn’t leave a mark on me. I have always said i don’t care about the rhetoric, i care about actions. I have also criticized the actions as being far too cautious and “prgamatic”, defining as “impossible” that which the corporations don’t want (like single payer or a public option, which I believe something like 70% of Americans supported).
Sorry. Not spot on, and no mark. I laugh at your efforts.
You SHOULD care about the rhetoric. Politics is all about the rhetoric when the power is split and one party is determined to make the other fail no matter what the cost. Obama’s only choice is to keep striving and building a record of what he’s trying to do, with the Republicans obligingly obstructing every single effort. In two years there are going to be a lot of exasperated Americans angry at the way the Republicans squandered their chance to get something done and very much OVER the Tea Party and its nutty proposals.
You think that the Republicans in the house would have been more likely to fund clean energy initiatives if the Bush tax cuts had not been extended? That doesn’t make any sense to me and neither does the idea that the President should only put things in his budget proposals that the Republicans will be OK with. Some people would even call such notions “retarded.”
no, i do not.
But also don’t think it’s fair to tell the american people we can still move forward with investing in our future, after we’ve foreclosed on funding those investments, by suggesting we get the funds by ending oil subsidies no one has any intention on ending. It transparent bullshit on its face.
Calling it an “exercise in futility” is inaccurate because it implies that someone’s actually going to try to end those subsidies. It’s as pointless as the GOP’s vote to repeal health insurance reform, all for show.
Letting Americans know that GOP gives oil companies free govt money as they make record profits, pollute, and gauge them at the pump can not be a bad thing, regardless if it possible by Congress. It is playing the long game and Republicans constantly employ it.
According to the report issued by the senate, BP snapped their fingers and got the convicted Lockerbie bomber released for “medical” reasons:
Who’s paling around with terrorists?
It will be futile only if the liberal Dems don’t make it a loud partisan issue. The oilcos are probably even more hated than Congress or the insurancecos. This is where some populism would be a good thing. Of course that would mean cutting the more corrupt Congressional Dems off at the knees, which no one’s been willing to do so far.
Axelrod admitted that Obama’s team had squandered their bully pulpit. I hope Obama, Reid, et al read the interview.
Link?
It’s just a short bit from a long interview:
The article, especially the Q&A, has a few more interesting looks into the WH from one mover’s perspective.