President Obama said it best – its time to subsidies to these highly profitable oil companies, because “Americans are getting hit twice, one at the gas pump, and once more by sending billions of dollars in tax subsidies to oil companies.”
But Republicans will have none if it, as they had an almost unanimous Senate vote yesterday to continue giving $4 billion a year to oil companies.
Moments after Obama made his election-year appeal in the White House Rose Garden, the Senate failed to reach the threshold of votes needed to proceed to a measure that would have ended the subsidies. Obama had argued that Americans are getting hit twice — once at the gas pump, and once more by sending billions of dollars in tax subsidies to oil companies.
“I think it’s time they got by without more help from taxpayers who are already having a tough enough time paying the bills and filling up their gas tank,” the president said. “And I think it’s curious that some folks in Congress, who are the first to belittle investments in new sources of energy, are the ones that are fighting the hardest to maintain these giveaways for the oil companies.”
The Senate vote was 51-47, short of the 60 votes necessary. Two Republicans voted to proceed to the legislation — Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. But four Democrats rejected the effort — Sens. Jim Webb of Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Begich of Alaska.
