Palin: As for the government subsidies that we’re hearing Obama flirting with right now in wanting to decrease those or eliminate those, we’re only talking about four billion dollars. Compare that to the fourteen trillion dollar debt that he, our President, has certainly contributed to and four billion dollars is a drop in the bucket and he shouldn’t assume that the four billion dollars is going to affect Big Oil. No, it’s the independent explorers that we want out there with their entrepreneurial spirit and their manpower and their job creating ability to be out there exploring and then responsibly exploiting and extracting our god-given natural resources.
Frost: I’m a supporter of the President’s. I’m concerned that he’s going to lose credibility on this oil and gas issue because he’s not telling the truth entirely. What he is saying is that you need to eliminate four billion dollars worth of tax breaks for major oil companies because major oil companies have obscene profits. The problem with this is that one of the big tax breaks that he’s citing -intangible drilling costs- excuse me -percentage depletion- was repealed by Congress, excuse me, in 1975, 36 years ago, as it affects major oil companies. The only ones that get percentage depletion anymore are domestic independents who drill most of the wells in the United States and employ four million people. Now the press doesn’t do a very good job of covering oil and gas tax issues. They don’t understand them. But if the press ever picks up that the President is not telling the truth about the depletion allowance, that it doesn’t go the major oil companies, he’s going to have additional problems, I believe, in the polls.
Palin:Again, you have to remember that President Obama, and I’m going to say this with all due respect to the office of the Presidency, he doesn’t know what he’s doing when it comes to energy. He does not know, as I just pointed out, that the four billion dollars that he thinks he’s gonna stick it to Exxon, BP, Conaco Phillips that no, it’s going to be the independent producers, the explorers that we want out there creating jobs that are going to be hit with an end of subsidy.
bfl
Ending exploration is exactly what the dems have always wanted to do.