Thursday, June 21, 2007

Senate Republicans earning their campaign contributions today...

Senate Republicans, led by Jon Kyl (R-PAC), successfully protected Big Oil and its profit margins today when they blocked consideration of tax breaks for alternative energy.

By a vote of 57 - 36 (60 needed to pass), the Senate failed to invoke cloture and block a threatened filibuster of the Baucus Amendment to HR6. The amendment would have created the tax breaks for alternative energy and funded them with a tax hike on large oil companies.

Our own Jon Kyl, from an AP article -
"When you put a tax on a business it gets passed on to consumers," argued Sen. John [sic] Kyl, R-Ariz. "Instead of reducing gasoline prices, this bill is going to add to the cost of gasoline."

Nice to see that the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Kyl has received from energy PACs over the years hasn't dulled his keen perception of consumers' needs. (that's sarcasm folks :) )

Senator Kyl - Wouldn't the consumers reap a more valuable long-term benefit by having a choice of different products to meet their energy needs?

Just askin'....

Anyway, I wonder how many campaign contribution checks were signed at the various industry PACs after the vote (not that I'm a cynic or anything. :)) )

Later!

2 comments:

Eli Blake said...

Well, Pederson said last year that Kyl had 'gone Washington' and was nothing more than a cog in the special interest money machine.

And Kyl said that wasn't true.

Yeah.

Thane Eichenauer said...

The problem here is that the taxes that will be imposed with said proposal will be imposed NOW and will be readily passed on to consumers NOW and alleged pie-in-the-sky independence from much decried gasoline may be years and years AND years in the future. Kyl has accepted money from the oil industry (I'll grant you this one for the moment), the same industry that manages to pump oil from plenty of forsaken places on earth, transport it, refine it and make it ready and available for me to use to drive to work. (If you can hear the sarcasm about the oxymoron that is government energy research then your brain is turned on.)