The Corporate Welfare Gluttons

 

Photo Credit: ABC News

So, you think gas prices are too high? 

Well, they are (at posting) up from $2.10/gal one year ago to $3.20/gal. 

The reason is not what your Trumpist friend and the OAN or FOX talking heads are telling you, though.

Here’s the thing… Joe Biden does not control the price of your gas. The oil companies do.

It’s a good question to ask them why they haven’t increased production just an itty-bitty bit, don’t you think? More gas, less cost at the pump for us, their customers who have been giving them a free ride for decades.

While we are all struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table, these guys raked in $174 billion in profits this past nine months alone. Jacked up gas cost at the pump amounts to an additional “tax” on all of us.

Perhaps you didn’t know, but the oil boys rank among the world’s largest recipients of U.S. corporate welfare and tax breaks, more than $470 billion since 1916, when it all started, through 2014.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (eesi.org), as of 29 July 2019, the oil boys were still collecting $20 billion per year in tax breaks and subsidies from us, the U.S. taxpayers.

The EESI report continues: "The United States provides a number of tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry as a means of encouraging domestic energy production. These include both direct subsidies to corporations, as well as other tax benefits to the fossil fuel industry. Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually."

Talk about welfare gluttons. The oil boys have pocketed, and continue to pocket, the treasure trove of all U.S. public funds rip-offs.

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