Can the GOP Break Its Oil Addiction?
The problem with intellectual inconsistency is that it usually comes back to bite you. The House Republican leadership is getting a painful lesson in this regard because of their longstanding support for subsidizing the oil industry.
This largess—billions of dollars in special tax breaks and subsidies—has suddenly become a liability for a party that has made fiscal responsibility the centerpiece of its policy agenda.
The first sign of trouble came courtesy of a recent ABC news interview with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Put on the spot, Boehner had trouble defending the oil subsidies saying “I don't think the big oil companies need to have the oil depletion allowances…We need to control spending...And they ought to be paying their fair share."
It was a good response for someone properly focused on getting spending under control. Unfortunately, the Speaker started backtracking from the statement as soon as he remembered that the President and other Democrats support ending these subsidies.
As Boehner was backtracking and Republicans were circling the wagons in defense of oil subsidies, Exxon and Shell reported huge quarterly profits that were up over 60 percent from the same period last year. Exxon reported $10.6 billion in profits for the quarter and Shell reported $8.78 billion.
In light of those profits, the GOP mantra that removing the subsidies and special breaks would result in a higher price at the pump sounds more like the utterings of a blackmail victim than it does lawmakers focused on sound public policy.
As Boehner and company were probably hoping the issue would go away, news surfaced that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) had expressed support for ending oil subsidies at a recent town hall meeting. When asked about oil industry tax breaks Ryan said:
We’re talking about reforming the safety net, the welfare system. We also want to get rid of corporate welfare. And corporate welfare goes to agribusiness companies, to energy companies, financial services companies. So we propose to repeal all of that.
It will be interesting to see if Republicans can be persuaded to go along with such a proposal—particularly in light of the campaign cash oil interests ply them with and the insistence by libertarian radicals like Grover Norquist that ending any tax break, regardless if it has outlived its original purpose, amounts to a tax increase.
For anyone who is truly in favor of the free market and fiscal responsibility, special corporate tax breaks and subsidies should not be the norm, nor should they be championed as the functional equivalent of lower across the board tax rates.
Special corporate subsidies and tax breaks, to the extent that they are used at all, should be temporary and targeted towards a very specific policy goal that is in the nation’s long-term interest—such as giving breaks to jumpstart renewable energy and new technologies, or encourage energy conservation.
If Republicans can garner the courage to make a clean break from their habit of subsidizing oil companies, they will not only strike a blow for intellectual consistency, but they will be helping our nation to break its oil addiction and give cleaner, more domestically available, alternative fuels a fair chance to compete in the market place.
If not, its special interest driven contortions will repel voters—just as they did in 2006.