re: #164 Obdicut

I’m really not understanding, this, Reine. I’m not just talking about a ‘lower tax rate’. I’m talking about many other subsidies, from guaranteed loans, to federal insurance programs, to the federal government shouldering the cost for a lot of the environmental damage from the oil companies.

I’m not saying anything in the least bit controversial. We’ve subsidized the energy industry. I am not making the claim that we’ve subsidized them to a greater degree than we’ve collected taxes from them— though the true economic cost of burning coal and oil is, with AGW unchecked, an unknown, that’s not really an original fault of the oil or gas companies. It’s the whole society’s regard.

I’m not sure what it is I’m saying you actually have a problem with.

By law, BP is responsible for the clean-up of the environment. I posted a page the other day, an interview with Thad Allen, about how he can work with BP, and how BP has been writing WEEKLY checks to cover costs.

What I have a problem with is this:
Calling something a “subsidy”, when it is nothing more than an established tax rate that happens to be lower.

Some people in this country are taxed at a higher rate than others.
Does that mean the folks being taxed at a lower rate are being “subsidized”? I don’t think so. It just means they are taxed at a lower rate.

Now, subsidies would seem to be where the Gov’t gives money to something for nothing - like paying farmers to leave fields idle.

“Tax breaks” are just that - breaks, not subsidies.

The use of the term ‘subsidy” to describe a process where government takes less from you than they do from someone else is just - odd, and well, it annoys me.