There is a big difference between a tax deduction and a subsidy. The terms get thrown around as if they're one and the same..
Oil companies, as well as other businesses, can write off certain expenses in order to lower their tax burden. Many small wildcatters would go out of business if they couldn't deduct some of their exploration and drilling costs from their tax bill. And BTW, the oil majors pay huge amounts of taxes every year, in spite of these writeoffs. A business tax deduction simply means that a company is able to keep more of the money that it earns in the first place.
In contrast, when the government gives a big chunk of taxpayer cash to a favored "green" recipient, like the DOE throwing millions at cellulosic ethanol plants that could never obtain private capital financing because they have no commercial value, that's a subsidy.
Keeping more of what you earn (a tax deduction) is quite a bit different than receiving money that others earn (a subsidy, or corporate welfare), with the government alternating roles between robber and sugar daddy in the latter case.
As for foreign wars and involvement, you'll get no argument from me that this country needs to back off in a major way. IMO, other than in direct cases of national security, we have no business wasting American lives and billions of dollars in many of the dubious involvements we've become entangled in. |
