The New York Times has long made a habit of airing its disdain for
big cuts in domestic spending and soaring profits at major oil
companies. However, Edmund Andrews chose to reinvent the wheel by
conflating the two unrelated issues in a front-page February 14
article: U.S.
Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies.
Andrews reductive thinking tied one of the biggest giveaways on
oil and gas in American history to a congruent amount Bush is
proposing to cut from Medicare, Medicaid and child support
enforcement programs over the same period. Not only did Andrews
eschew basic economics and facts, he insinuated a clich that
mothers use to convince their kids to eat Brussels sprouts.
Andrews criticism of oil profits was
unique only in structure. Much like supporters of the
windfall profits tax,
Andrews harped on the evils of oil profits and crusaded against a
government plan to let companies pump about $65 billion worth of
oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years
without paying any royalties to the government.
While he did admit that royalty relief for coastal drillers had
bipartisan support and was intended to promote exploration and
production, his article argued that the vulgar amount of profits
going to greedy oil companies negated the necessity of such a
policy: The big issue is whether companies should be exempted
from paying royalties even when energy prices are at historic
highs. (emphasis added)
Lets answer this again:
yes. One more time:
yes. Say it with pride!
Yes.
As energy analyst Ben Lieberman wrote in a
Nov. 15, 2005, Heritage Foundation
report,
Given the tightness in current supplies and predictions of strong
future growth in demand for energy, anything that discourages
additional oil production will inevitably hurt the energy-using
public.
Andrews also exercised some zero-sum thinking that most would
remember from childhood. Whose mother hasnt told her children to
eat their Brussels sprouts because some child is going hungry
tonight and would love to have a plate of that loathsome vegetable?
While its unnatural for such an appeal not to arouse guilt, its a
non sequitur. A $35 billion reduction in oil royalty revenue does
not result in a commensurate cut in anti-poverty programs not in
theory or fact.
As the indefatigable Heritage Foundation
outlined in its budgetary
analysis,
Anti-poverty spending has surged 39% under President Bush to a
record 16 percent of all federal spending. The medias redundant
harping on budget cuts flies in the face of the clear expansion of
government outlays from 2001 to 2005 for health care assistance (40
percent), food assistance (49 percent), and food stamps (71
percent). Imagine how much gaudier these numbers would be if they
werent cuts, to say nothing of being implemented in a growing
labor market and economy.
From the Mouths of Babes... to the Pockets of Oil Execs
February 14th, 2006 2:00 PM
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