re: #133 engineer dog

The U.S. oil and gas industry survived an effort to repeal $21 billion in tax breaks over 10 years as three Democrats broke with Senate leaders who said the revenue should go to reduce the federal deficit.

strangely enough, however, the oil companies remain highly - and i mean highly profitable, so, um, why do they get a tax break?

It s a bit of a trick of words. One of “tax breaks” is that they get to deduct against earnings the cost of searching for oil, for example. It is a very expensive part of the process.