WP: GOP Blocks Measures Boosting Taxes on Oil Companies' Profits

[DeepModem Mom]

GOP Blocks Measures Boosting Taxes on Oil Companies' Profits
Provisions Passed by Senate Would Raise About $5 Billion
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; Page A06

While Republican leaders sharply criticize soaring gasoline prices and energy industry profits, GOP negotiators have decided to knock out provisions in a major tax bill that would force the oil companies to pay billions of dollars more in taxes on their profits.

House and Senate tax writers have been struggling to reach an accord on separate tax bills approved last year to extend some expiring tax cuts enacted during President Bush's first term. But House Republicans have raised strong objections to Senate-passed provisions that would raise nearly $5 billion in taxes over five years -- primarily by changing arcane accounting rules that have allowed oil companies to substantially lower their tax bills, according to House and Senate tax aides familiar with the talks.

The actions of Republicans hashing out a tax bill behind closed doors indicate that, despite tough talk from the White House and Capitol Hill, the party is not ready to hit the oil companies hard -- even on measures that have broad support in the Senate.

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) made it clear yesterday that the leadership would only go so far in punishing an industry enjoying record-breaking profits if that punishment could have broader negative consequences. In January, Exxon Mobil Corp. alone reported the highest corporate profit in U.S. history: $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005 and $36.13 billion for the entire year.

"The windfall profits , when it was tried in the '80s, failed miserably because it led to less discovery. It led to less production and was a failure," Boehner said. "There is no reason for us . . . to go there again."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042501738.html

[savemefromdumbya]

1. oil companies can pay for everyone's health insurance?

[baby_bear]

5. Do these companies pay any income tax? n/t

[savemefromdumbya]

12. oil companies get away with murder

[Erika]

2. People want alternative energy sources. n/t

[SushiFan]

3. Repugs talk a big talk but thier actions are what

really matter. Bush can talk about wanting to protect the middle classes all he wants, but in reality it is the oil companies' profits he really wants to protect, being from the oil industry himself.

I trust nothing which comes out of his mouth nor that of any of his GOPig cheerleaders in Congress. Go to hell ReThugs! (Can you tell I don't really like the Republican Party of today?)

[The Roux Comes First]

4. "Hit the oil companies hard" oyez oyez

Oh give us a break, Post! Reach around there and confirm that there are vertebrae backing you up. They're not prepared to hit the grease companies soft!

With their constituent ratings in the tank, all they have left are the payoffs from dickhead's pet "energy committee."

[spag68]

6. oil company's

Don't forget that they are not paying any royalty's on their gulf of mexico rigs. Not one penny.

[Historic NY]

7. GOP stands with the "Common Man"..........

not, they don't care about "Joe Six-pack".

[Historic NY]

8. history of windfall profits...........

smoke & mirrors or just propaganda at $74 a barrel it has to work.

Historical Perspective: The Windfall Profit Tax -- Career of a Concept by Joseph J. Thorndike
Date: Nov. 10, 2005

Last week, amid much grumbling about record profits, Congress summoned oil executives to Capitol Hill. Democratic lawmakers warned darkly of a tax on windfall profit, and even a few Republicans endorsed the idea. It's enough to give a petrocrat pause. (For related coverage, see Doc 2005-22918 and 2005 TNT 217-3 .)

Not so very long ago, lawmakers made good on that sort of threat. From 1980 to 1988, the nation levied a special tax on domestic oil production. Given the unhappy results, a repeat seems unlikely. But it's still a tale worth telling.

What's in a Name?

Let's get one thing straight: The oil levy imposed in 1980 was called the "crude oil windfall profit tax" (WPT). Note the singular "profit," a useful reminder that this tax should never be confused with the "excess profits tax" imposed during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. "The windfall profits tax has nothing to do, in fact, with profits," observed The Washington Post in 1979. "It is an excise tax -- that is, a tax on each barrel of oil produced." In 1980 Congress enacted the WPT when it ended oil price controls. The controls were a remnant of President Richard Nixon's general wage and price freeze, implemented in 1971. While most of Nixon's price controls expired in 1973, Congress extended oil regulation through 1981. Worried over the rising cost of home heating oil as well as a general run-up in world petroleum prices, legislators decided to keep a lid on domestic oil prices.

From the start, opponents worked tirelessly to abolish oil price controls. Most plans for repeal included some sort of windfall profit tax, either as a sop to disaffected lawmakers or as part of a genuine effort to balance the scales of economic justice. In 1974 President Gerald Ford proposed such a compromise, and the Senate Finance Committee approved a version of the WPT in 1975. Ultimately, however, it fell to President Jimmy Carter to make the bargain stick. In April 1979 he introduced plans to lift price controls gradually over the subsequent 18-month period. In tandem, he offered a new tax on oil production. "Unless we tax the oil companies, they will reap huge and undeserved windfall profits," Carter declared in a nationwide address. Americans had a right to recapture some of that windfall and put it to good use. Carter suggested that the revenue be earmarked for mass transit, oil price relief for poor families, and the development of alternative energy sources.

http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/cf7c9c870b600b9585256df80075b9dd/edf8de04e58e4b14852570ba0048848b?OpenDocument

[SpiralHawk]

9. "All our obscene profits are belong to us." - Republicon Oil Cronies

The republicon culture of corruption marches on...to the crapper.

[Seabiscuit]

10. Maybe it's high time to round up all the damned Repukes and

drown them in the La Brea Tar Pits. They're incorrigible.

[depakid]

11. No one really thought that the far right would EVER

take any responsible action here, I hope.

Just more of the same dishonesty and sophistry. They'll pump it out through the media and their supporters will fall for it, as always.