In his Feb. 13 budget, Obama said existing tax “loopholes and expenditures” for the oil and natural gas companies amount to an unwarranted “preference” of these industries over others. [source]Ignoring that oil companies have spent billions of dollars expanding domestic oil and natural gas production that have saved consumers billions of dollars...
Obama ridiculed Republican presidential candidates as the “flat Earth crowd,” who’d “rather give $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil companies this year than to invest in clean energy.”So, on the one hand, the President chides U.S. consumers and the automobile industry for not being "green" enough and consuming too much fossil fuels while, on the other hand, sets up roadblocks to expansion of domestic oil exploration and production and demonizes oil companies for their profits... profit that is used for paying taxes, profit that creates new jobs, profit that enriches retirement funds, profit that could otherwise go to Iran or Venezuela or Saudi Arabia.
America's three biggest oil companies, ExxonMobil ( XOM - news -people ), Chevron ( CVX - news - people ) andConocoPhillips ( COP - news - people ), all endure income tax burdens of more than 40%--higher than the statutory U.S. rate of 35%. Exxon, with a 45% rate, tallied $21.6 billion in worldwide income taxes for 2010. [source]Meanwhile, the President pushes investments in one "alternative" failure after another and thinks of himself as a visionary. That would be a visionary through coke-bottle glasses.
The President has a way of lying through omission. He tells one part of the story and conveniently omits the salient counter-points. In this case, that's because he views profits from corporations as rightfully belonging in his stash.