At his stop today in Defiance Ohio McCain said this:
McCain Delivers Remarks in Defiance, Ohio - washingtonpost.com
"Today, ExxonMobil reported record profits. Senator Obama voted for billions in corporate giveaways to the oil companies; I voted against it."
Exxon posted a quarterly profit of $14.8 billion, so that is what he is referring to as far as Exxon, but what I am confused about is his remark about Obama.
After doing some searching I believe he is referring to the 2005 energy bill, for which Obama took some heat on voting for. A discussion of the bill can be found here:
Public Citizen | The 2005 Energy Bill - Learn More About the Energy Bill
From reading into this it sounds like there were two large breaks in there. One for about $6 billion in subsidies
Public Citizen | Energy Program | Energy Program - The Best Energy Bill Corporations Could Buy: Summary of Industry Giveaways in the 2005 Energy Bill (doesn't state time frame), and another one with about $76.5 billion in tax breaks over the period of 2005-2014.
Public Citizen | Energy Program | Energy Program - Tax Breaks Benefiting Energy Companies in the Corporate Tax Bill, HR 4520
So my question is this? Was McCain simply referring the the subsidies, or the tax breaks? Either way actually it doesn't make much sense for him to bring up this issue, at least in my eyes.
Consider this if he is referring to the subsidy portion, under his corporate tax rate, Exxon alone would have paid probably $1.5 billion less in taxes for the quarter alone. Annualized that one company would get the same break under the McCain rate as the entire industry under the subsidy section.
Consider this if he is referring to the tax break portion. Isn't that what he is doing? Giving a 10% tax break to corporations?
This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me that he would bring it up as an issue.
John McCain has me confused...
