Over the last few weeks, thousands of Environmental Action members have signed on to our call to END $41 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to Big Oil and their friends. Today, the President made it official - he's in.
In his big budget address today, the President specifically called for lowering the overall corporate tax rate and paying for it by (amongst other things) cutting $41 billion in subsidies to Big Oil and their friends.
When we met with the White House last month to deliver your signatures THANKING them for the President's decisions to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and make every car in America go farther on a gallon of gas - this was one of the major things we asked for. Not just a little cut to oil company subsidies, but a big one - the kind that can help break big oil's stranglehold on our economy and free up resources to build a future that runs on clean energy.
Now, we've got the decision we wanted from the White House. But we've got a long way to go. Big Oil and their allies in Congress are already sharpening their knives and looking for ways to keep bailing out big oil companies who don't need our money.
And recent reports indicate that leading conservative and polluter-financed spin-meisters - from Candidates for President on down to local School boards - are trying to seize on the recent up-tick in gas prices to attack any effort to take on Big Oil. It's dead-wrong, of course. The top Oil companies are making record profits. And higher gas prices are the RESULT of their greed - not a reason to pay them a second time.
But to break big oil's hold on our democracy we're going to need more than a Presidential shout-out. We're going to need a movement of Americans dedicated to the idea that it's time to leave oil and other fossil fuels in the ground, and focus on a new energy economy.
To borrow a line from Barack Obama - Are you in? If so, sign now to tell Congress to follow the Presidents' lead and end the big oil bailout.
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Big win on Oil Subsidies
FEBRUARY 22, 2012
