Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File).Why am I not surprised here? From Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, under pressure from business leaders, retreated Monday from a plan that would have used a tax increase on oil companies and other businesses to fund a $100 gasoline rebate for millions of motorists.
Frist, the Tennessee Republican, had proposed an accounting change that would have required oil companies to pay more taxes on their inventory of crude as a way to pay the one-time rebate which GOP leaders rolled out last week as they scrambled to find ways to ease public anger over soaring gasoline prices.
In a statement, Frist said he will still push the rebate, but abandoned the accounting change and said the Senate Finance Committee planned a hearing on the issue in the near future.
Frist gave no indication how the rebate, estimated to cost about $10 billion, will be paid for, although he said he still planned to "find a way to bring our proposals to the Senate floor for a vote."
Gee, I wonder what "business leaders" opposed this tax plan to give the $100 gas rebate checks to Americans. Could it be the oil companies? Why, look at this:
The tax accounting change involving inventories was the most substantial tax hit Congress has been seriously considering in response to the huge oil industry profits at the time of soaring costs at the pump. The change, applying only to five of the largest oil companies, had been approved by the Senate, but faced strong opposition in the House.
Oil companies waged an intense lobbying effort to block the change.
Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., at an energy conference Monday, called it "nothing more than a backdoor windfall profits tax" and a "very dangerous and very poorly thought out step to take." The change was estimated to increase taxes for the five major oil companies by $4.3 billion over five years.
Frist would have expanded the tax to other industries, which prompted a chorus of protests, prompting his retreat from the proposal. The National Association of Manufacturers and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among others, made known their strong opposition to the inventory taxing change.
I guess we have another example of where Republican loyalties lie. The Republicans whore themselves to the corporate interests, then expect the American public to become whores to the Republicans for a measly $100 bucks. It is so funny how the Republicans like Bill Frist still keep calling this a gas rebate plan. Because it isn't really a gas rebate plan at all. It is just a cheap $100 tax cut to be handed out to lower and middle income Americans. The money is being taken out of the U.S. Treasury. And now we're not even taxing the oil companies to pay for this plan--Big Oil doesn't like this accounting change, so Big Oil tells Frist and the Republicans not to include this accounting change. So the name of this "gas rebate" plan is just that--nothing more than a name created by the Republican spin-meisters to link the issue of high gas prices with a cheap tax cut that they can hopefully sell to the voters for maintaining their control of Congress in this year's election. The Republicans could have called this plan a tax rebate, brown-bag bribes, or even whore-payments--it is all the same. Continuing on:
The rebate proposal, meanwhile, seemed to have little appeal among motorists who would benefit.
Aids to several Republican senators, including some who support the proposal, said Monday they have received generally negative feedback from the public in telephone calls and e-mails.
"There are some who say this is a Band-Aid and they want a real solution. .... There are people who say, `Do you think I can be satisfied so easily,'" said Don Steward, an aide to Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas. He said almost all of the comments received about the rebate — which Cornyn has characterized as "a theatrical response" — have been negative.
Another Senate staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the senator was among those who have been pushing the GOP energy package, said voters know that with gas costing more than $3 a gallon the rebate likely will pay for only a couple of tanks of gas.
"It's probably one fill-up for a Sequoia," added the aide, referring to the Toyota SUV that gets 15 miles to the gallon in city driving.
But Frist said the rebate "will help people who are emptying their wallets at the pump. ... We've got to help those who are feeling pain ... as quickly as possible." Single taxpayers earning up to $145,950 and married couples earning up to $218,950 would get the rebate in August under the Frist proposal.
It would appear that even the American public knows when the Republicans are treating them like whores. This $100 rebate check isn't going to do much to reduce the high costs of gas prices--it will just fill up my gas tank twice, and I have a 2000 Mazda 626 sedan. And since this plan doesn't place a cap on the gas prices, there is nothing to hold the oil companies back from increasing gas prices, at the pump, so they can take their own chunk of this rebate check (Please note that I am not advocating a cap on gas prices).
Bill Frist still doesn't get it. He's willing to push this ridiculous plan as a means to "help people who are emptying their wallets at the pump. ... We've got to help those who are feeling pain ... as quickly as possible." And while Bill Frist is trying to help those Americans "who are feeling pain," he still climbs into bed with the Big Oil companies by retreating from his own proposal to make Big Oil pay for some of the gas rebate checks.
More Republican hypocrisy.
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