The Ryan Budget Retains 100 Years of Unnecessary Big Oil Tax Breaks and Revives New Ones from the Rejected Romney Budget Plan

Oringinal Link: http://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2013/03/12/56360/release-the-ryan-budget-retains-100-years-of-unnecessary-big-oil-tax-breaks-and-revives-new-ones-from-the-rejected-romney-budget-plan/

By Madeline Meth

In response to the FY 2014 House Republican budget blueprint—a plan that protects Big Oil companies at the expense of struggling American families—the Center for American Progress today released an analysis that explains exactly why Big Oil doesn’t need billions of dollars in existing and new tax breaks. “Meet the New Oil Tax Breaks, Same as the Old Oil Tax Breaks” demonstrates that Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) oil company giveaways are ghosts from the budget that he and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney ran and lost on in 2012.

“The 2012 election should have permanently buried the Romney-Ryan Big Oil tax breaks, but Rep. Ryan just exhumed them,” said Daniel J. Weiss, CAP Senior Fellow and author of the analysis. “To understand why the Ryan budget attempts to reanimate these dead tax provisions is as simple as that old Washington saying ‘follow the money.’”

The Ryan budget apparently retains the existing special tax breaks, worth $40 billion to Big Oil companies over a decade. In addition, Rep. Ryan’s FY 2014 budget explicitly includes the Romney presidential campaign’s economic plan proposal to cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent—nearly a one-third reduction. That could provide an additional combined tax cut of at least $2.3 billion annually to the big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell.

Rep. Ryan has benefited from the campaign largess of Big Oil donors, including Koch Industries. Big Oil gave Republican incumbents and candidates 90 percent of their $70.5 million in donations in the 2012 election cycle. The oil-and-gas industry also gave the Romney-Ryan campaign $5.4 million during the 2012 presidential election.

Rep. Ryan makes numerous claims about the urgency of slashing the federal budget deficit to justify cuts in clean energy, health care, education, and other priorities essential to a vital American middle class. Adding new tax reductions to the $40 billion in existing tax breaks for rich Big Oil companies profiting from high gasoline prices makes his rhetoric hypocritical at best and a lie at worst.