This is the second recent multi-million dollar ad that Americans for Prosperity (the Tea Party Koch Brothers group) has run against President Obama in the service of Big Oil, and Mitt Romney.
Why? Because Big Oil knows that President Obama will again try to end taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil. Romney will let them keep their subsidies.
Two well-funded Republican groups began running hard-hitting ads against President Obama last week, aiming to spend an estimated $8 million in key battleground states. The spots hit similar themes, attacking Obama on green-energy investments, and even cite similar sources.
Watching these ads is a depressing duty for The Fact Checker, because many of their claims — regarding “billions” of stimulus dollars going overseas — had been debunked two years ago by our colleagues at PolitiFact and Factcheck.org. Yet here the erroneous assertions emerge yet again, without any shame, labeled as “the truth” or “fact.”
The ads are airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia, and in fact, even though I rarely watch television, I happened to catch the latest despicable piece of crap ad over the weekend. I termed the ad "despicable", because of course, the ad is nothing but lies. In fact, they just damn well made stuff up.
Fortunately, the Obama Campaign came out with a response fairly rapidly, and now we need to do our part and get this video seen by everyone we/you/I know! But first, please watch the video, and make a note of the talking points:
Damn our conservative Supreme Court and the Citizens United ruling that allowed our elections to become a mockery of democracy.
The Senate on Thursday thwarted Democratic plans to strip billions of dollars in tax breaks from the largest oil companies, just an hour or so after President Obama urged the chamber to kill off the deductions.
Lawmakers voted 51-47 to block Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) bill. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure.
Two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, both from Maine — crossed party lines and voted to repeal the tax breaks. Four Democrats — Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jim Webb (Va.) — voted against the bill.
Today, we found out that the 47 senators who voted against the bill have received almost $24 million in contributions from oil and gas. The 51 senators who voted to repeal the big oil subsidies received only $5+ million.
In a 51-47 vote, 43 Senate Republicans and four Democrats filibustered to protect $24 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil. Although a majority voted for Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) bill, it fell short of the 60 needed. The only two Republicans to break rank were Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
A Think Progress Green analysis shows how oil and gas companies have funneled cash to the same senators who protected its handouts:
– The 47 senators voting against the bill have received $23,582,500 in career contributions from oil and gas. The 51 senators voting to repeal oil tax breaks have received $5,873,600.
– The senators who voted for Big Oil’s handouts received on average over four times as much career oil cash as those who voted to end them.
– Overall, Senate Republicans have taken $23.2 million in oil and gas contributions. Democrats received $6.66 million.
– Since 2011, Senate Republicans have voted seven times for pro-Big Oil interests and against clean energy three times.
Democrats who joined the Republicans in defeating the bill include Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Jim Webb (D-VA). Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) broke ranks and voted to cut the tax breaks. Two senators, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) didn’t vote.
Republicans have taken an overwhelming 88 percent of oil and gas contributions this election cycle. While showering politicans with cash, the oil industry also spent over $146,000,000 on lobbying last year.
Although 55 percent of Americans want to see Big Oil welfare end, the GOP once again largely acted in-line with their Big Oil donors.
For a full list of names and dollar amounts of oil and gas contributions to the Senate, visit Think Progress.
Liberal blogger, Bob Cesca, on oil subsidies and the character of Republicans in the Senate:
“Oil subsidies will continue thanks to the Senate Republicans and several conservadems[...]
But they’ll slash the hell out of social programs because it’s “fiscally responsible.” $4 billion in oil subsidies every year for companies earning record profits that could go towards reducing the budget or making sure people have healthcare. Good people.”
During a speech at the White House today, President Obama was very clear in what he expected from Congress regarding the subsidies currently enjoyed by highly profitable big oil companies. Not that Congressional Republicans paid any attention. Watch:
Text Transcript of Remarks by the President on Oil and Gas Subsidies March 29, 2012
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Everybody, please have a seat. Sorry we’re running just a little bit behind, but I figured it’s a great day to enjoy the Rose Garden.
Today, members of Congress have a simple choice to make: They can stand with the big oil companies, or they can stand with the American people.
TEXT TRANSCRIPT: Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address
The White House Saturday, March 17, 2012
Hi, everybody. As I’m sure you’ve noticed over the past few weeks, the price at your local pump has been going up and up. And because it’s an election year, so has the temperature of our political rhetoric.
What matters most to me right now is the impact that rising prices have on you. When you’ve got to spend more on gas, you’ve got less to spend on everything else. It makes things harder. So I wanted to take a minute this weekend to explain what steps my Administration is taking when it comes to energy – most importantly, producing more of it while using less of it.
The truth is: the price of gas depends on a lot of factors that are often beyond our control. Unrest in the Middle East can tighten global oil supply. Growing nations like China or India adding cars to the road increases demand. But one thing we should control is fraud and manipulation that can cause prices to spike even further.
For years, traders at financial firms were able to game the energy markets, distort the price of oil, and make big profits for themselves at your expense. And they were able to do all that because of major gaps and loopholes in our regulations. When I took office, we did something about it.
The Wall Street reforms I signed into law are helping bring energy markets out of the shadows and under real oversight. They’re strengthening our ability to go after fraud and to prevent traders from manipulating the market. So it’s not just wrong, but dangerous that some in Congress want to roll back those protections and return to the days when companies like Enron could avoid regulation and reap enormous profits, no matter who it hurt.
What’s more, at a time when big oil companies are making more money than ever before, we’re still giving them $4 billion of your tax dollars in subsidies every year. Your member of Congress should be fighting for you. Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies.
In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies. And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people. They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century, or they can place their bets on America’s future. So make your voice heard. Send your representative an email. Give them a call. Tell them to stand with you.
And tell them to be honest with you. It’s easy to promise a quick fix when it comes to gas prices. There just isn’t one. Anyone who tells you otherwise – any career politician who promises some three-point plan for two-dollar gas – they’re not looking for a solution. They’re just looking for your vote.
If we’re truly going to make sure we’re not at the mercy of spikes in gas prices every year, the answer isn’t just to drill more – because we’re already drilling more. Under my Administration, we’re producing more oil here at home than at any time in the last eight years, that’s a fact. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs to a record high, that’s a fact. And we’ve opened millions of acres on land and offshore to develop more of our domestic resources.
Those are the facts. But we can’t just rely on drilling. Not when we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but still only have 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. If we don’t develop other sources of energy, and the technology to use less energy, we’ll continue to be dependent on foreign countries for our energy needs. That’s why we’re pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy. As we develop more oil and gas, we’re also developing wind and solar power; biofuels, and next-generation vehicles – and thousands of Americans have jobs right now because of it. We need to keep making those investments – because I don’t want to see those jobs go to other countries. I want to create even more of them right here in America.
And after three decades of inaction, we raised fuel economy standards so that by the middle of the next decade, our cars will average nearly 55 miles per gallon. That’s nearly double what they get today. That means you’ll only have to fill up every two weeks instead of every week. And that will save the typical family more than $8,000 over the life of the car – just by using less gas.
Combined, these steps have helped put us on a path to greater energy independence. Since I took office, America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year. In 2010, for the first time in 13 years, less than half the oil we used came from foreign countries.
We can do even better. And we will. But what we can’t do is keep being dependent on other countries for our energy needs. In America we control our own destiny. So that’s the choice we face – the past, or the future. And America is what it is today because we have always placed our bets on the future. Thanks, and have a great weekend.
Yesterday, our apparently heartless House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that there would be no disaster relief from the federal government for victims of the killer tornado in Joplin, Missouri unless other cuts to the federal budget were made to pay for it. Cantor and his GOP-Teabagger team in the House then made a decision to cut clean energy, rather than something like, oh, I don’t know, oil subsidies?
Scientists have warned for decades that our climate system would grow deadlier as greenhouse pollution from coal and oil increases, with greater floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and storms. Instead of responding to reality by mobilizing our nation to protect people from climate disasters and build a resilient, green economy, Republicans are keeping us tethered to big oil.
“It is staggeringly shortsighted to pay for the economic losses of climate disasters by choking off funding for policies that reduce the threat of future climate disasters,” said Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. [emphasis mine]
Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) on The Ed Show.
When you talk about cutting clean energy programs versus cutting subsidies for big oil, let’s have that debate here in Washington. But not on the backs of the people of Joplin.
Watch:
Adding…..according to Think Progress, they’ve “acquired the text of the Aderholt amendment. Of the $1.5 billion cut from the clean cars program, only $1 billion is directed to disaster relief, while $500 million is simply rescinded.”
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to the CEOs of the nation’s five largest oil companies (Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, BP America, Chevron and Shell) during a Senate hearing on Thursday regarding high gas prices (part of a Democratic effort to end subsidies for oil companies):
I find it hard to understand how you can come here before this committee and the American people and say, when you are projected to make $125 billion in profits this year, that somehow the loss of $2 billion a year, which means you only make $123 billion in profits, is somehow so punishing, somehow not part of shared sacrifice, somehow you need to go back at them at the pump to make up for it.
The multinational corporations behind the Win America campaign want a tax holiday because they chose to avoid paying their fair share of taxes by stashing much of their money in offshore tax havens.
The problem with their tax avoidance arises when they want to bring that money back in to the U.S./repatriate that money, and they consequently have to pay a statutory tax rate of 35%. To avoid paying the 35% statutory rate, they then, as history has it, initiate a concerted effort to convince Congress to give them a “tax holiday”. A tax holiday which would result in a 5.25% tax rate on the repatriated funds rather than the statutory rate of 35%. That’s quite a hefty savings.
Once again, the GOP tells the American people that we don’t matter.
But tax cuts for milionaires, big oil subsidies (going to the same industry that loves to bilk us for every dime), and tax breaks for offshoring companies…….these things matter. To the GOP.
Fueled by intense lobbying from the nuclear industry, Republicans in the House of Representatives are ignoring the meltdown, pushing full steam ahead with billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear plants, even as they zero out programs for renewable energy. The Department of Energy’s successful clean energy loan guarantee program is on the chopping block — except for nuclear power. On Face the Nation, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) criticized the choice to put public money on risky nuclear companies instead of clean wind, solar, and geothermal power:
Unbelievably, the nuclear industry was able, just three weeks ago, to convince the Republican House of Representatives to zero out the loan guarantee money for wind and solar and geothermal, and to put in $18 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loan guarantees for the nuclear industry. Well, that’s ancient history, already, because it’s pretty clear that the nuclear industry as an electrical-generating part of our mix for the future is now going to meet its maker in the marketplace. It won’t be protesters. It will be Wall Street investors that are going to be raising real questions about its viability going forward.
I find it hard to understand how you can come here before this committee and the American people and say, when you are projected to make $125 billion in profits this year, that somehow the loss of $2 billion a year, which means you only make $123 billion in profits, is somehow so punishing, somehow not part of shared sacrifice, somehow you need to go back at them at the pump to make up for it.
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