Barack Obama Comes Out For Even HIGHER Gas Prices


I realize Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and was Editor of Harvard Law Review, but I’m starting to think he’s not that bright — or at least lacks sense (never mind that he won’t release his college transcripts).

He’s definitely an amateur and it shows when, late yesterday, Obama came out in favor of even higher gas prices.

As a friend noted on Facebook, Obama’s popularity is falling so fast that Kenyans are now claiming Obama was born in the United States. This won’t help that.

Now, he does not say he is in favor of higher gas prices (though his Secretary of Energy does), but Obama wants Congress to “take ‘immediate action’ to end tax subsidies for oil and gas companies”

The two subsidies Barack Obama specifically wants Congress to kill are the “percentage depletion” and “intangible drilling costs (IDCs)” tax incentives.

Enter Democrat Congressman Dan Boren who explains why doing so would drive up the cost of oil production, make us more dependent on foreign oil, and — oh by the way — points out that getting rid of these would not affect Exxon, Shell, BP, Phillips-Conoco, etc. in the least little bit.

Boren notes

Specifically, the Administration is seeking to repeal the “percentage depletion” and “intangible drilling costs (IDCs)” tax incentives. The removal of these provisions would negatively affect domestic independents who utilize them to attract the capital necessary to drill new oil and gas wells inside the United States. It is estimated that eliminating percentage depletion and IDCs for domestic independents would reduce U.S. drilling by 30-40 percent, thereby increasing the nation’s dependence energy from foreign sources. Furthermore, the major oil companies are barred by law from receiving percentage depletion altogether, as it only is given to domestic independent producers. The IDC preference is only available for domestic drilling activity, and as the major oil companies drill primarily outside the U.S., the domestic independent sector of the industry will yet again bear the brunt of losing this critical provision.

So, getting rid of these would only affect small businesses.


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He promised higher energy costs

darjon38 Wednesday, April 27th at 5:20AM EDT (link)

When Obama was discussing bankrupting coal companies, ending dependence on fossil fuels altogether, he said, “under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket”. And now he wants to find out who caused the outrageous spike in gasoline prices? Seems to me that’s what he wanted all along. Perhaps just look in the mirror for the culprit?

That is what he wanted.

hendrig Wednesday, April 27th at 11:48AM EDT (link)

He knows he is the real culprit. He is just hoping the people are as dumb as they think he is.

 
 

Obama's wildest dreams...

jrfoleyjr (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 6:00AM EDT (link)

…are dreams no more. He now has the power to wave his magic pen and totally bankrupt and make powerless the USA. And it is happening before our eyes.

In just one presidential term in office, we have witnessed the transformation, like the shedding of a cocoon or maybe the word is mutation, of the Democratic party into the Neo-communist Democrats Progressive [NDP] party that moves as one to destroy America.

I can be only disrespectful of the Obama administration.

This isn't a dream,

popster Wednesday, April 27th at 6:18AM EDT (link)

it’s another version of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and the director is an Obumbling neophyte aided by a crew of tax cheats.

 

Remember.

hendrig Wednesday, April 27th at 12:03PM EDT (link)

During the campaign, I remember one point he made very clear. He said he would rather be a one term president as long as his his changes were put in place and the country was well on it’s way to reaching his goals, than to be a two term president and accomplish nothing. The writing was on the wall back then but no one wanted to believe it. Even if he does loose next year, he has achieved what he wanted. He has destroyed this country from within to a point that it may be impossible to recover. If he does loose next year, he will be of no further use to George Soros and I hope old George then throws him under the bus.

 
 

Mr. Boren gets it, but Mr. Boehner doesn't.

Steve Maley (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 7:00AM EDT (link)

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/157643-boehner-opens-door-to-ending-tax-breaks-for-big-oil-companies
}

“Everybody wants to go after the oil companies, and frankly, they’ve got some part of this to blame,” the Speaker said. “But they’ve got to do everything they can to help us produce oil and gas at a lower price.”

In terms of the tax credits, Boehner said he disagreed that the credits were “special benefits,” but acknowledged that with the country’s massive budget shortfall, Congress should keep all options should be on the table.

“It certainly is something we ought to be looking at. We’re in a time when the federal government’s short on revenues,” Boehner said. “We need to control spending, but we need to have revenues to keep the government moving. And they ought to be paying their fair share.”

To be fair, Mr. Boehner said he wants to take the tax breaks away from big oil companies. As Mr. Boren pointed out, big oil companies lost these breaks many years ago.

The blogger formerly known as ‘Vladimir’.

No Surprise

edintexas Wednesday, April 27th at 7:24AM EDT (link)

I guess it is what we should have expected (that Republican “Leadership” wouldn’t “get it”, no matter what “it” might be). Republicans have almost always tended to go with the next person who has “his turn” come up. We don’t get new ideas from those who have “put in their time”, we get the “same old, same old”. So Republicans are still acting as if they are a permanent minority, allowing the Democrats to run Congress and the country. The Republicans don’t have the cojones to take charge, even when they (legally) control the purse. When confronted by the Leftists, they blink.

 

The speaker keeps revealing himself

jiminga Wednesday, April 27th at 7:31AM EDT (link)

as the RHINO he really is. This populist rhetoric is more like a Democrat, reviling “evil corporations” and looking for tax revenue. Of course he fails to mention that any increase in taxes for corporations will be passed directly to consumers in price increases. We should do away with all corporate taxes, level the playing field, and let the free market decide which is best. Then congress would need to increase personal taxes to make up for the lost revenue and be accountable for those increases, instead of hiding behind corporate tax policies. With “leaders” like these, we are doomed.

 

Boehner needs to go.

Marcus_Traianus (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 8:35AM EDT (link)

Boehner said lawmakers “need to take a look” at Obama’s call to end those “benefits” for oil companies. Those “benefits” which are tax subsidies will be immediately passed on to consumers as an increased cost.

So did Boehner simply fail Logic or Math in school or is he just the Republican village idiot?

Energy companies are already our most heavily taxed industry. They pay almost as much in taxes as they made in profits. For Boehner to suggest that subsidies, which reduce the price to consumers, should be ended is the tripe we expect from Reid and Pelosi.

Boehner is more concerned with image and appearances than principle. Mr. “let’s make a deal” needs to go and be replaced with real leadership. Otherwise we will be relegated back to the minority.

“Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object—the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers; the other, by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove.”.Thomas Jefferson

 
 

Shutting off the tap.

radicalrighty Wednesday, April 27th at 7:05AM EDT (link)

Basically, that is what Obama is doing. So he can give Jeffery Immelt more billions to research useless “renewable energy.” Has there in history been a more obvious money cycle than the GE/Obama connection?

I wish someone in the GOP would come out and say, “I’ll vote to end subsidies for oil companies, just as soon as Obama ends the tax breaks and subsidies for GM.”

The crooked SOB would shut his mouth on this issue, at least.

GM and the Government

edintexas Wednesday, April 27th at 7:27AM EDT (link)

I heard/read the other day that in order for the taxpayers to be “made whole” on the “investment” in GM, the value of the 500,000 shares of GM stock held by the US government would have to reach a value of $58.00 per share. The day before GM shares closed at about $30.00.

The bond holders are wondering how they get made whole?

Common_Cents (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 12:21PM EDT (link)

Oh yeah, Obama cut them out of the deal.

and didn’t GM exit bankruptcy with full tax loss carry forwards of tens of billions?

“Fathom the hypocrisy of a Government
that requires every citizen to prove
they are insured…. but not everyone
must prove they are a citizen.”
-Ben Stein

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”[especially in DC] – Friedrich Nietzsche

 
 
 

The "If it wasn't tragic, it would be hilarious stage"

steve010 (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 7:40AM EDT (link)

of the modern Democrat Presidential Administration is starting. During about 12 months of the Carter Administration everything Carter did was an attempt to fix a screw up that he made earlier that just screwed things up even more. Clinton was able to avoid this stage because he let the (R)s run the government while he never had any sexual relations in the Oval Office. That was kind of hilarious, but not tragic. Inflation is the most tragic tax on the poor and middle class. Doesn’t affect people like the BenBernanke who ride in limos and have never been inside a grocery store.

 

Obama Hates Small Business And Loves Big Business

MikeG (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 8:03AM EDT (link)

Or rather, he only hates Big Business, while he clearly loathes small business. The five reasons for this are:

a) Small business demonstrates that regular people can succeed financially without government assistance,

b) Small business generates greater wealth and employment in this country than big business, thus undermining Obama’s social engineering goals and class demagoguery,

c) Small business has less reason than big business to engage in rent-seeking behavior with the government, and so has far less reason to donate to and vote for Democrats

d) Small businesses tend to be run by regular people, while big businesses are led by Obama’s fellow elites,

e) Big businesses, in the end, are more easy to nationalize than small businesses, which is Obama’s end-game for the economy.

Get Five Big, Schwingin' Dicks Around A Conference Table

Repair_Man_Jack (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 8:37AM EDT (link)

and Barack I feels like king of the world. He loves the fact that you can boss around Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein and a couple of other schmucks and control the lives of thousands of people. It’s an ego trip thing with him. He feels it beneath him to transact Grubby commerce with Gabe’s Printing and Copying Co.

Mr. Obama is pretending that an economic “recovery” is underway when he knows damn well that the banking system is just blowing smoke up the shredded *** of what’s left of that economy – James Howard Kunstler

 

+5 /nt

ajshea (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 9:12AM EDT (link)

You left out a major reason

MF (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 12:03PM EDT (link)

f) Small businesses are far harder to control than big businesses. Get just a few key people in the right places of major corporations and they are under your thumb, while small businesses are more like a bunch of ants. You can keep squishing them one at a time and you’ll never get anywhere. So Obama just purs gasoline on the entire anthill, lights a match and happily watches them all go up in flames.

That was sort of implied

MikeG (Diary) Thursday, April 28th at 7:48PM EDT (link)

Each of the reasons I stated has the effect of making small business more difficult to control or nationalize than big business, so I didn’t feel the need to list it has its own, distinct reason. Your point, however, is well-taken.

 
 

You left out a major reason

MF (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 12:03PM EDT (link)

f) Small businesses are far harder to control than big businesses. Get just a few key people in the right places of major corporations and they are under your thumb, while small businesses are more like a bunch of ants. You can keep squishing them one at a time and you’ll never get anywhere. So Obama just purs gasoline on the entire anthill, lights a match and happily watches them all go up in flames.

 
 

It's on the EPA and the

ag8tor Wednesday, April 27th at 8:08AM EDT (link)

Environmental lobby. They have taken measures to stifle any oil or natural gas production with their rediculous restrictions. Please understand that we don’t have ANYONE in congress that has the stones to make a real push back against his majesty for fear of what it might do to their career in politics. We have NO representation. Get elected and don’t make waves and keep your seat. The one promise “O” has kept was raising gas prices and now that it’s getting closer to election time he is outraged about the possible price fixing or gouging that may be going on. I expect this sort of back handed foolishness from this sleeze ball but I also expect the so-called conservatives that were given the majority last November to put up a fight. As I feared after the election, it’s just business as usual once they secured another term with little or NO concern about the American public until the next election. “O” will get his wish that gas go for $5-6/gallon because these spinless wimps in DC will let him without so much as a terse word. It’s a disgusting lack of leadership at a time when America needs a strong leader the most. Please educate your friends that don’t understand what’s happening unless it’s about American Idol. We have to rid ourselves of this “progressive/socialist” cancer in 2012 or become the next Cuba!

 

Solar and wind power get huge subsidies so Obama should cancel them also.

Old_Crow (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 8:40AM EDT (link)

When president Bush used an executive order to end the ban on off shore drilling in the summer of 2008, the price of gas immediately fell and continued to fall for the rest of the year.

Amazing how that supply and demand thing works.

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” — James Madison

Obama rescinded that executive order & gas prices started back up

ajshea (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 9:15AM EDT (link)

See the graph at http://disruptthenarrative.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/gas-pump-activism/ — sources for that are http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html or http://tinyurl.com/2mjow

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/02/obama-ill-make-energy-prices-skyrocket/ or http://tinyurl.com/6q2tjb

I used Foxit Reader annotation tool to add these to the PDF.

 
 

Ya know, this "Leading from Behind" thing has possibilities

6eorge Jetson (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 8:54AM EDT (link)

“Hey Boss, I’m working hard today by phoning it in from the golf course”

“Don’t worry Dear, I’m sticking to my diet with this second hot fudge sundae”

“Sincerely, Barack Obama”


Click to see full size image

 

Take Obama at his word here

gregorysstewart (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 9:33AM EDT (link)

“Energy prices will, of necessity, skyrocket.” — Barack Obama, 2008.

 

I understand his popularity

realskinny (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 9:36AM EDT (link)

is falling so much some American Blacks are reminding people he’s only half-black.

 

You know we're in sad shape when Dan Boren makes a better Republican Speaker than John Boehner.

Locked and Loaded (Diary) Wednesday, April 27th at 1:26PM EDT (link)

nt

No GM, GE, or any GSE for me.

Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?
Matthew 20:15 NIV

 

Has anyone noticed that "education" doesn't seem to help presidents be effective presidents?

vandalii Wednesday, April 27th at 1:40PM EDT (link)

We had a Rhodes scholar recently (Clinton) that spent some time protesting and putting down America while studying in Europe, so education wasn’t much help in his formation as a world leader.

Now we have a Magna Cum Laude from arguably the most liberal campus on the continent today…apparently that was much help for community organizing, not much help for world leading.

Nah, give me a practical fair-to-good student in school who isn’t being carried around on other shoulders. That one develops some character that plays out in the world arena in far more practical ways than being a prima donna from the left’s academically arrogant stock.

“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue.” – Winston Churchill

 

End Other Subsidies As Well - Betcha Won't

awkingsley Wednesday, April 27th at 1:43PM EDT (link)

When Obama ends business incentives to the oil industry, he also needs to end incentives to child production via Medicaid AFDIC. We really need to stop subsidizing that industry. And, we would like for him to end energy credits for the Wind Energy because wind farms are abandoned, due to the fact that they do not make their owners enough money, We agree. with Obama, subsidies are a real drain and a nuisance.

Because Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, either professors at Harvard must not do any testing for common sense solutions at that college or he must be the child that didn’t turn out quite right or both. Certainly his track record indicates every intention of throwing good money after bad, something our grannies told us not to do. They were good ol’ common sense Americans.

 

Obama's tsar wants $7 to $9 gas so they

Juggernaut (Diary) Thursday, April 28th at 8:09PM EDT (link)

can fund alternative projects with the tax revenue and somehow magically everyone will go buy a new car. Cash for Clunkers 2.0 payoff for votes in 2012? The only good that high prices bring is the end of Obama’s job. I can wait that out with $4 gas or whatever but can his supporters. Nope the poor are already complaining and blaming Obama.

http://toledoblade.com/Letters-to-the-Editor/2011/03/03/Blame-Obama-for-gas-prices.html

The Fecal Brains at Media Matters had a meltdown because Obama is being blamed, rightfully so because Obama is in charge. Obama could have acted when oil hit $70 a barrel, above $70 the economy suffers. Price went in the low thirties till after Obama policy went into effect on Jan 20, 2009

http://mediamatters.org/research/201103140030

RomneyCare is Right Wing Socialism –

Romney “severely conservative”? That’s the opposite of a “compassionate conservative” like George W. Bush? Actually, we know what a severely conservative is. It’s Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney is no Dick Cheney.