Oily Words
Both Clinton and Obama propose to spend $150 billion over 10 years for energy improvements. Clinton says she'll fund her new spending in part by raising taxes on oil companies and repealing tax incentives for the industry. Obama's energy plan also states that he'll "repeal tax breaks for the oil and gas industry." We don't see much distinction here.
We also see little difference in their past records regarding tax incentives for the oil industry. In 2006 Clinton introduced a bill calling for a 50 percent tax on "excess oil profits" and elimination of a number of tax incentives for the oil industry. And in 2007 Obama introduced a bill of his own that also would eliminate a number of tax incentives. Neither bill attracted any cosponsors. Clinton's died in the Senate Finance Committee at the end of the last Congress, and Obama's is still languishing in the same committee.
Real Differences, Exaggerated
There are some real differences in the voting records of the two candidates on energy, but even here these dueling ads exaggerate and strain the facts.
Oil Tax Breaks. Clinton's ad faults Obama for voting in favor of the 2005 energy bill, which she voted against. She misleads, however, by describing it as "the Bush Cheney energy bill." By the time Obama voted for final passage, many of the Bush administration's original proposals had been stripped out, and in fact most Senate Democrats (including some of Clinton's most vocal supporters) sided with Obama in supporting the bill. Clinton was one of only 19 Democrats to vote against final passage. Obama was among the 25 Democrats who voted in favor.
It's true, as the Clinton ad states, that the bill "was called a piñata of perks." That was from a Washington Post report from 2005, which discussed criticism of the bill. The ad also is correct to say that the bill was called "the best energy bill corporations could buy," a criticism that came from Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy organization. But it's also true, as we've noted a number of times, that the Congressional Research Service later calculated that the oil and gas industry lost more tax breaks than it gained in the 2005 legislation, resulting in a net tax increase that CRS put at $300 million over an 11-year period. Not mentioned by Clinton is the fact that (as we've noted several times before) the $14.3 billion in tax breaks in the bill included large incentives for alternative fuels research and subsidies for energy-efficient cars, homes and buildings. So while Clinton and Obama were on opposite sides, her ad is misleading to suggest that his vote represented support for "Bush Cheney" perks for oil companies.
Fuel Efficiency Standards. Obama similarly distorts his differences with Clinton regarding federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His ad says that "it's Barack Obama who's taken on the oil companies, demanding higher gas mileage standards," as though Clinton had never supported higher standards. That's not true.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 05/06/2008 3:12:08 AM
Comment: FatedGolem, a person can be an elitist and a liberal. An elitist believes that he knows what is better for people than they know or can understand themselves. An elitist believes he is smarter than the ones he wants to rule, that he knows what is best for them even if they don't agree with him. An elitist argues they are just too dumb to figure it out for themselves, which is why Obama's "cling to their guns and their religion" comments tagged him as an elitist, and his explanation that they don't know any better than to vote against their own best interests only made it worse.
Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 05/06/2008 3:05:50 AM
Comment: Suspending the gas tax would save over four and a half a billion dollars in trucking costs a year for manufactured goods, or more than a billion for the three months it is proposed. The Clinton proposal translates not only into savings on the cost of gas for consumers, but on the cost of everything being transported to the market where we buy it.
In a period of recession which threatens to get worse, making it possible for consumers to go on vacations, and helping American businesses cut costs so they can continue to employ their workers makes sense to me, especially if there is no loss to the highway trust fund.
Posted By: getzel @ 04/21/2008 4:13:02 PM
Comment: 1. Energy independence
2. Why we have terrorist & how to stop terror the easy way
1. War ends We win: when we pass a law that makes the minimum price of gasoline at the pumps: $1.75/gallon.
The ethanol investors do not build ethanol distilleries because monopoly OPEC would lower the price of crude/gasoline to rust out the billion dollar/million barrel a day ethanol stills.
Brazil is energy independent: ethanol; All their cars come built running on ethanol; The gas station fills the tanks with ethanol, no gasoline.
Archer Daniel Midland made millions in the USA selling $1.00 gallon ethanol in the 1990s;
That trumps any canard/invalid objection to ethanol. Use Cellulose ethanol, not corn ethanol.
Cellulose Ethanol energy independence in the USA, will balance the trade deficit, create full employment, bring down the price of fuel, break the monopoly on the pricing of fuel, balance the USA government budget, create less pollution, make the USA energy independent, and end the war because we will stop funding the bad guys everyday at the gas pumps.
With all the cars running on ethanol; the price of oil will collapse and the radical Moslem hordes will no longer have the funds we used to give them from gasoline sales to finance the war against us.
I built a distillery and converted my GM car to 160 proof ethanol by 1982; and tried 25 years to get the USA off of gasoline. Unless the strategy I am outlining is adopted, the war that is coming, regardless of who is elected, will make Vietnam look like a cake walk.
2. Sharia people are at war with The West because Sharia people believe Islam can not survive against: a free market economy with free speech to criticize Islam.
International law, has defined a set of war rule parameters that guarantee no war can be won by good guys and that guarantee nice long lasting wars with lots of weapons sales.
Generals: Patton. Eisenhower, Marshall , Sherman et al would all be war criminals under international law and Europe would be under Hitler; the American civil war would not be over if fought under the current rules; which, intentionally or unintentionally, are designed for a hundred year terror war.
Cut off terrorist infested countries/areas: no phones, no lights, no motorcars not a single luxury. No food, no water, no ships/airplanes in and out, no trucks cross their borders; nothing till they give up the terrorism. Better the terrorist should die right there than have a war where the world is terrorized for 100 years.
The leadership that sponsors these terrorist suicide murders are the Heads of state in Tehran, Riyadh, and Damascus.
Intelligence analyst: Getzel