They Need that Cash to Light their Cigars!

Record subsidies to the oil and gas industry:

The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.

New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.

Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.

If ANY business can afford to pay royalties to the US government it's the oil and gas guys. There's absolutely no need for corporate welfare in this case (or any case, really, if you want to level the playing field in this country). How in the world can you justify giving $7 billion dollars away over 10 years to companies who literally make more than that every quarter?

Well, you can't. So you bury it in the back of the Interior Department budget.

Let's see if (hah) the Republican Congress (hah hah) gets right to work (oh stop, you're killing me) on making sure oilmen pay their fair share (stop it, stop it, I can't take it anymore!) to this country.