When I stop laughing.
In the meantime, here are some tax breaks for you to spin. Subsidies by another name.
Bush Signs Energy Bill, Cheers Steps Toward Self-Sufficiency
Measure Includes Billions in Tax Breaks for Industry
The energy bill provides tax breaks and other incentives to encourage new nuclear plants, cleaner-burning coal facilities, and production of more oil and natural gas. It also offers incentives to produce energy from wind and other renewable sources and to make homes and office buildings more efficient.
"It's Christmas in August for big energy, and consumers get lumps of coal," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director for U.S. PIRG, an advocacy group that works on environmental and consumer issues.
The bill exempts oil and gas industries from some clean-water laws, streamlines permits for oil wells and power lines on public lands, and helps the hydropower industry appeal environmental restrictions. One provision would repeal a Depression-era law that has prevented consolidation of public utilities, potentially transforming the nation's electricity market.
Analysts said the biggest step lawmakers could have taken to reduce foreign oil dependence would have been to increase vehicle mileage standards. But Congress rejected that approach, saying doing so would result in the loss of U.S. auto jobs and the production of vehicles that are unsafe -- arguments disputed by environmentalists and some analysts. Instead, lawmakers focused on fixes backed by powerful lobbies and influential constituencies. Ethanol, for instance, is a big winner under the new law because it is often produced from corn, a popular and plentiful crop in the Midwest, where many states are considered up for grabs in next year's election
washingtonpost.com
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What's in the 2005 Energy Bill?
On the gasoline front, the big ticket item is subsidies for ethanol—as usual. Archer Daniels Midlands (ADM) owns 7 ethanol plants with a production capacity of 1,103,000,000 gallons per year. The ethanol tax subsidy is 51¢/gallon, so that comes to $562,000,000/year. (Now there's a lobbying effort that paid off.) But we need energy independence, right? Unfortunately, using ethanol costs $7.24 to reduce fossil fuel use by the energy in a gallon of gasoline. And, no, most of that money does not turn into ADM profit, it's just used up making something that's too expensive. But they do turn a good profit while soaking up 1/3 of the ethanol subsidy. (There is hope for better ethanol.)
Now what about those hybrid-car tax breaks of $1700--$3000 per car?
Toyota figures it can get a $2400 subsidy on one of its great new hybrids that get about 50 mpg instead of about 25 mpg like most of us get. Driving 100,000 miles over the life of the car saves 2000 gallons so that's $1.20 per gallon saved. And that savings requires no nitrogen fertilizer. It also helps to jump start one of the best new technologies out there.
How much money will be spent on hybrid tax breaks? There's a limit of 60,000 cars per company; figure 6 companies and $2400 on average, that's $864,000,000. But that's for four years, 2006--2009, not per-year like the ADM subsidy. Why the limited budget on a much better deal? Because no American car companies can sell more than about 60,000 hybrids in that time. If they had expanded the program, Toyota, which will sell 100,000 hybrids in 2006, would not run out of tax breaks in August of the first year. These tax breaks encourage conservation, but like the ethanol subsidy, their purpose seems more to help corporations
zfacts.com
Wow.3 grand for a hybrid; but if I get a hummer,(not limited to 60K sold, BTW)
First-year deductions on a
$110,000 Hummer H1
(note: all other SUVs are fully deductible)
Economic Stimulus Pkg 2002 Jobs and Growth Act 2003
Equipment Investment $25,000 $100,000
Bonus Deduction $25,500 (30%) $5,000
(50%)
5-year depreciation $11,900 $1,000
Total deduction $62,400 $106,000
selfemployedweb.com
More subsidies for the GOP/auto/corn. But then ADM gives lots of money to pols.
So let me get this straight; I can spend 100K on a hummer and get back 100K, or I can spend l00K on a solar system and get 2 K credit. That's cool. |
