End subsidies for oil producers
An oil drilling rig punches a hole in the ground in Texas. Credit: AP, 1999
Bad habits are hard to break. What other explanation is there for continuing to shower hugely profitable oil companies with $4 billion a year in federal tax breaks?
There are two compelling reasons to stop: They don't need the money, and we do. With gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon nationally and on Long Island, oil company coffers are bulging. And with a $1.6-trillion federal budget deficit, taxpayers can't afford to be so generous or backward looking.
President Barack Obama urged Congress Tuesday to eliminate the tax breaks -- some in place since the 1920s -- and to invest those dollars in clean energy, such as wind, solar and biofuels.
The oil lobby has been successful in beating back such proposals. But Exxon Mobil reported a $10.65-billion first-quarter profit. Royal Dutch Shell racked up $8.78 billion in that period, and BP made $7.1 billion. Nothing wrong with making money. But tax breaks lavished on an industry where companies make so much is fiscal folly.
Ending them won't do anything in the short term to lower gas prices or create jobs. That's how Republican congressional leaders rationalize their continuing the tax breaks.
But we need to think long-term on energy. Subsidies to help fledgling renewable-energy industries become competitive could eventually reduce our reliance on foreign oil and produce new jobs.
As for the oil companies, we're already giving to them at the pump.
