Monday, July 5, 2010

Without tax breaks, it's not worth Big Oil's time to drill in U.S.

See, you can't fool the free market. And the free market says it's just not profitable for Big Oil companies to go after U.S. oil and pay all those darn taxes. If they didn't get approximately $4 billion annually in tax subsidies and credits, well, they just couldn't afford to hire Americans to get at all that hard-to-get oil. They'd pack up and go someplace else. Because, you know, there's oil in abundance everywhere and they're really just doing us a favor by extracting our oil and employing our workers. We should be thanking them!

"Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs.

"'These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe,' he said. 'So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them.'"

Oh, no! Wait! Don't go! Um, here, take all your money back, just please keep on drilling and doing us a favor!

Seriously though, how stupid do these guys think we are? The nerve!


By David Kocieniewski
July 3, 2010 | New York Times

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