So today, I was talking with my friends about the 100 Hour Agenda. About Speaker Pelosi (God it feels so good to type that) and her party's plan to clean up the mess that we have in our country.
Believe it or not, the biggest flak came from pulling subsidies for energy companies. You know, the ones making record profits? These same small government conservative friends of mine are defending a corporate handout fearing retribution in prices at the pump if we yank the slush fund away.
The answer to corporate welfare is one simple sentence....
I believe American companies should get a hand up, not a hand out.
Remember that line? Heard it all the time when welfare reform came around about a decade or so ago. So many of the same people that balk at losing subsidies for energy industries who are literally bathing in filthy lucre at the moment.
It seems simple to me. Unlike poor people who don't have expensive lobbyists to fight on their behalf, energy industries will have a voice in Congress on this issue next year. Subsidies won't be outright killed, even though they probably should be.
What's more likely to happen is that subsidies will be hinged to become based on acheiving benchmarks that the government feels is necessary to acheive energy independence. For example, requiring a percentage of their operating budget to be invested in renewable energies, and increasing refinery capacity across the country. Forcing them to act on energy efficient technology patents that so many big oil companies are just sitting on, or lose the patents....
If a government handout to a poor person doesn't come without conditions and benchmarks of action to keep the subsidy from becoming permanent, why shouldn't corporate welfare become the same way?