Posted on 06/10/2010 10:58:11 AM PDT by xlib
"I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what's happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.
Boehner's statement followed comments last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue who said he opposes efforts to stick BP, a member of the Chamber, with the bill. "It is generally not the practice of this country to change the laws after the game," he said. "Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that."
So today I asked Boehner, "Do you agree with Tom Donohue of the Chamber that the government and taxpayers should pitch in to clean up the oil spill?" The shorter answer is yes.
(Excerpt) Read more at tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com ...
UT OH, the left is afraid Nasty Pelosi is going to lose speakership in November....
Politically tone deaf on Boehner’s part if true.
Sounds logical though. Whoever allowed BP to drill there, and gave waivers, etc., certainly should bear some of the costs...
Right Barry?
I hope Boner isn’t trying to lose this election.
If this is true, he is insane.
If not, may I remind him - we're broke - $13 Trillion in debt and a large number of the "taxpayers" aren't paying taxes because they're out of work.
Of course. The Obama admin bears a large chunk of the responsibility for the oil leak.
Yeah!!!!!
All Congresscritters (House and Senate) should decline their pay until the Obama mess is cleared up! Plus 25 years! The expenditures not made in Congressional salaries and perks and emoluments (initial from US tax dollars) will make a tidy down-payment on the National Debt they have created.
Meal-On-wheels can cater all Congressional events, lunches, etc. Possibly the Salvation Army soup kitchen would be another source of food for Congress.
Late update: Boehner spokesman Michael Steel emails to say "Boehner made a general statement about who is responsible for the spill, and the federal government oversight was clearly lacking, but he has said repeatedly that BP is responsible for the cost of the cleanup."
Because Beutler doesn't include any direct quotes from Boehner's answer to him, we can only assume that Beutler doesn't know the difference between "take responsibility" and "pay for."
I don’t know about the rest of you but I feel like I pay for this oil spill and everything else wrong with the oil companies every time I fill up my tank; and Missouri has some of the lowest fuel taxes around so we aren’t paying as much as most. Still p!sses me off though...
BP’s liability is capped at $75MM unless they voluntarilly agree to pay more. I’m betting BP will reach some agreement with the gov’t where they pay for some and the taxpayers pay for some. Raising the liability cap retroactively would be ex post facto and unconstitutional.
Well, we ought to bill the whack-o environmental groups for forcing deep-water drilling instead of onshore and near-shore.
BOEHNER>>>STFU!! Obama is in the processs of DESTROYING HIMSELF!! STFU!!
you mean the tax paying public should be paying for a mistake that wouldn’t have happened had BP officials not overruled the engineers on the oil rig when they noticed anomalies in the well? Because BP told the rig workers, who were alarmed at some irregularities, to keep going, which led to the explosion of the rig, which led to the spill...etc etc.
BP has the primary responsibility here.
Yeah, that's the ticket...
I dunno.... when they have a windfall...what do the oil companies give back other than recurring taxable income?
Here we see a huge resource getting squandered which is more than enough to cover the bill of those who created the liability....
None of that removes the Zer0 admin’s responsibilities for the disaster, though.
I’m not saying BP isn’t responsible, just that they are not solely responsible.
Well, there you have it, the new "American Way", courtesy of the US Chamber of Commerce:
When a big enough company screws up, "everybody" is going to have to contribute so that "we" can "get money from the government" to help cover their costs.
TARP redux, except this time 100% our "contributions" will be going to bail out a foreign-based company.
Pretty consistent pattern here: first, these businesses spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and publicity to convince the taxpayers that they are "over-regulated" and that "burdensome government bureaucracy" standing in the way of progress, and then all of a sudden when they start to reap the consequences of their own mismanagement and relentless pursuit of short-term profits at the expense of safety, it's all the government's fault because they weren't sufficiently regulated to prevent the screw up.
And interesting how for politicians like Boehner the last bailout was always an abuse of the system and a ripoff of the taxpayers, but the current bailout is always the necessary and proper thing to do...
And it's why solicitations from the USCC and the Republican Party have been going into my wastebasket for years.
Since then 0bamao has offered to "kick ass" but in his usual incompetence, he didn't know whose. The only results from the tough talk from purple lips, so far, have been talk of BP declaring bankruptcy and dumping it all in the Fed's (taxpayers') lap.
I would say that 0bamao's lack of leadership, mismanagement and general lackadaisical, incompetent approach have made a bad situation worse.
These deepwater wells are folly.
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