nevergivesitathough offered no proof Obama said such.
Originally Posted by WTF
Judging from some of the comments on the board, people think you should offer links or proof if you disagree with them, not the other way around. Some unsolicited advice, if you're curious why they think what they do, yes, ask. But don't ask them to jump through hoops. That's not a good way to win friends and influence people.
Are you going to argue oil companies have no subsidies or loopholes?
We can go way back and I could argue the expansion of the nations highways transitioning moving people by car instead of rail was a subsidy for both big oil and the auto industry.
The federal gas tax was supposed to pay for that but that is paid for by the consumer.
Originally Posted by WTF
Come on man. Don't you know those gasoline taxes, that average 55 cents a gallon, are being taken out of the pockets of the employees of the gas stations and the refiners and the oil companies? That's one of the reasons why our tax system is so regressive. Some of these poor guys are paying more gasoline tax than they actually make. Or at least that seems to be one of the points the left is making in the debate about the progressivity of the tax system. I think you're agreeing in Unique Carpenter's tax thread that's not reasonable, as applied to payroll taxes paid by employers, but am not sure.
The gasoline tax depending on whether you looking at the buyers or the sellers or the supply chain, is paid by the people and companies who use the roads, the refiners, the gas stations, and the oil companies. If you're correct that the gas tax pays for the highway system and other roads, I don't see how that's a massive subsidy to big oil.
The only subsidies oil companies have gotten were small, research by the DOE and grants, some of the costs of the U.S. Geological Survey, etc. They're a drop in the bucket compared to what the industry spends on research. And a drop in the bucket compared to the severance tax which oil companies pay and other industries don't.