Posted on 12/01/2011 1:24:31 PM PST by CedarDave
In the ocean of federal budgetary red ink, the tax breaks enjoyed by oil companies and targeted for elimination by the Obama administration are a ripple.
The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal government will spend $973 billion more in 2012 than it takes in. President Barack Obama earlier this year proposed increasing oil industry taxes by $3.5 billion in 2012, 0.4 percent of the total deficit.
The administrations goal is not to raise money. According to congressional testimony by the Treasury Department, eliminating some preferential tax treatment for oil companies will divert investment from a 20th-century to a 21st-century energy economy.
Carol Mayo Cochran, an Albuquerque-based certified public accountant, says the administrations plan will indeed divert investment away from oil production, but it will be the small independent oil and natural gas producers based in places like Farmington, Hobbs and Artesia that pay the biggest price. Thats because the tax-advantaged partnerships that such companies use to raise capital for exploration and production will become riskier and less profitable.
The Exxon-Mobils of the world will hardly notice the changes, said Cochran, a principal at REDW LLC.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
A couple of notable details extracted from the story:
1. Oil and gas production in New Mexico generated $2.2 billion in revenue for state and local governments in the 2010 fiscal year, according to the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association.
2.Cochran said that the oil and gas industry will survive but for smaller companies new drilling, wildcat drilling, new fields would decline dramatically.
3. Tax preferences proposed for elimination would be worth an estimated $31.5 billion in the period. Stephen P.A. Brown of Resources for the Future calculated the average consumer would pay $1.40 more a year for petroleum products and natural gas as a result.
4. The US Treasury Department's position is that discouraging investment in oil exploration and production will generate more investment for clean energy.
Lengthy and detailed article available for reading for free by following instructions in the NM PING list below.
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Replacing fossil fuels is the only strategy that will effectively defund our enemies.
Sorry, but wrong. Using native fossil fuels while looking for alternatives will both defund our enemies AND be cost effective in the near-term.
INDEED.
AND it’s NOT about clean energy either.
They have a lot of ways to solve all those problems.
They do NOT WANT to solve those problems yet. They want to make them worse.
Yeah, right. /sar
What will defund our enemies is having sufficient home produced energy supplies such that we stop importing the bulk of our petroleum. Government efforts to diminish searches for domestic sources of energy increases not decreases payments to dictators and others not friendly to the US.
Solar energy and windmills are not going to cut it with the average American. Electric cars with a 40-mile charge limit aren't going to make it either. And, BTW, where does that power to recharge the batteries come from?? Fossil fuels mainly coal and an increasing percentage of natural gas, both of which have many years of in-the-ground reserves.
I think the Obama administration naively believes that green energy like wind and solar “work” and that the oil and coal companies have just gotten rich by despoiling the planet and deserve to be shut down. Their green agenda is a pure watermelon...green on the outside but red on the inside... and is meant to pander to environmentalist whackos with no concern what it does for the economy.
Markets do not work that way. In a global economy, switching from one regional supplier to another only creates minor ripples in the global market. The only way to really displace the enemy’s economic underpinnings is to shift the paradigm completely (e.g. major shifts to nuclear, solar, geothermal, etc).
Yes, the goal is diminish the American lifestyle because the liberal elites believe we have too much and deserve to have way of life be brought down to the level of other countries which will also bring a subsequent loss of individual choice and freedom.
We are not being led by “Leaders” or served by “public servants”. Nope. What is becoming more and more obvious is that we are being “trained” by a bunch of goofy assed “Trainers”.
Well, screw that.
If they don’t like the “depletion allowance” then they should end it for EVERYBODY. End it for Coal, gold, silver, copper, oil, gas, gypsum,iron, rare Earth metals, whatever. (I’d love to see ‘em try to come up with a better way of calculating depreciation, LOL .... good luck with that.)
I have no problem with that as long as they end the artificial support for windmills, solar crap, and coal powered cars at the same time.
Let the market decide.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
Please point to the clause in the Constitution that says it's the government's responsibility to shift paradigms.
Breaking the Fundamentalist jihadi threat is clearly “common defense”.
By force, I suppose. Cap and Trade and all that. Yup. That'll work. Who needs liberty anyway?
So, government deciding for us how energy is produced is “in the common defense.”
Is there any activity at all that cannot be explained away that way? BTW, quoting the preamble is not going to get you off the hook of my original question. The preamble also says “welfare” and people have tried to expand that beyond all reason as well. So, what section? What paragraph? What clause justifies the government picking winners and losers in contradiction of the market?
I had quite a fund discussion with a liberal once on the subject of forcing people to do things. I told him if he wasn’t willing to imprison or execute people for failure to comply, then he doesn’t understand the concept of “force.”
Liberals love freedom and liberty, as long as they’re the ones who get to force others. But they don’t understand the nature of force, or at least they hope we don’t.
You joined last month to spew green economy baloney, eh? The Ci-cago gang must realize that the American people are not going to vote for even higher priced gasoline to send you into the battle. Here’s a clue: wind and solar and geothermal all put together are not going to relieve our dependence on foreign oil one bit. On the other hand producing all the oil we have and the natural gas we have while removing obstacles from better technology for fossil fuels instead of pouring hundreds of millions into the Solyndras of the world will completely take the oil weapon out of the wrong hands.
You’re one of them retread Paul-tards aren’t you;
go ahead and admit it, noob.
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