Unicorns Fly. Congress Stops Corporate Welfare. Right.

DIALOGUE

— May 12, 2011
Sen. Rockefeller: How much profit on a barrel of oil do you have to make to not be needful, of these subsidies that we think you don’t need, but you say your life depends on? At some point you know, you wouldn’t need the subsidies. I don’t… I think you’re there already but you don’t. So, at what point do you think you don’t need these subsidies?

Chevron CEO John Watson: As we described we don’t receive subsidies senator. What we do require is a reasonable return on our invested capital, and I would tell you that I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice. I think they want shared prosperity. And what we have to offer…

Sen. Rockefeller: Aww, lovely statement, but do you understand how out of touch that is? We don’t get the shared prosperity until we get the shared sacrifice. I think you’re out of touch. Deeply, profoundly out of touch. And deeply and profoundly committed to sharing nothing… [Video]

Sen. Charles E Schumer: You’d have an easier time convincing the American people that a unicorn just flew into this hearing room, than that these big oil companies need taxpayer subsidies…

Sen. Max Baucus: You make a lot of money. That’s fine, that’s the American way. But, it also seems that maybe the subsidies are not really that necessary anymore.

CONGRESS MEMBERS ACT TOUGH BUT WON’T CUT OFF THE HAND THAT FEEDS

* Big oil execs defend $4 billion worth of oil subsidies. The big five raked in a collective profit of $35 billion in the first quarter of 2011 alone. Don’t you feel sorry for them?

* The plan (eliminating oil subsidies) would shrink America’s $1.3 trillion deficit by $21 billion over ten years.

* Members of Congress may grill Big Oil execs and may generate stagnant press, but often leads to little or no reform. These same type of hearings happenend in 2005 and 2008, and no reform yet.

* In 2005, oil execs said they didn’t need tax incentives to drill for oil. That’s not what they’re saying now.

* Lobbying dollars to Congress from Big Oil: Chevron $12.9 million, ExxonMobil $12.4 million, ConocoPhillips $19.6 million, BP America $7.3 million. [Video]

CONGRESS WON’T CONSISTENTLY ADMIT THERE’S A PROBLEM

Speaker John Boehner flip flops repeatedly [Daily Kos]:

“Washington Has a Spending Problem That Hurts Job Creation, Not a Revenue Problem”

“It’s certainly something we should be looking at, We’re in a time when the federal government’s short on revenues. They ought to be paying their fair share.”