Obama: End Big Oil Subsidies

Politico reports:

President Barack Obama used his weekly address to the nation to reiterate his call on Congress to stop granting tax subsidies to oil and gas companies.

“When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right,” Obama said Saturday. “They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.”

Despite recent signs of economic recovery, families across the country are experiencing “real pain” from soaring gas prices, Obama said. He pointed out that even as people were struggling to fill their gas tanks, some big oil companies reported more than $25 billion in earnings in the first few months of this year, far surpassing profits from the same period the year earlier.

As much as he supports the business successes of energy firms and lauds their entrepreneurialism, “I do have a problem with the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies we’ve been handing out to oil and gas companies,” Obama said.

In a letter to congressional leaders this week, Obama urged “immediate action” on the tax subsidies, arguing that the revenue generated from the move should be invested in clean energy programs to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

In the letter, Obama said he was “heartened” by the “openness” House Speak John Boehner (R-Ohio) expressed on April 25 to the idea of eliminating tax subsidies for energy companies. “Our political system has for too long avoided and ignored this important step, and I hope we can come together in a bipartisan manner to get it done,” Obama wrote.