The Daily Snark 5/13

Yesterday, the Senate had a public dressing down of oil company executives. Senators argued that the $4 billion in tax breaks should be taken away from those companies.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government spends $6 billion in subsidies to ethanol producers, one of the alternative energy solutions loved by liberals. Granted, eliminating both of these breaks would only fund the federal government for about 24 hours, but if we are going to strike down one, we should definitely strike down the larger subsidy funding a worse product.

I also got a huge kick that Senator Rockefeller accused oil executives of being out of touch with the people. Apparently the Senator does not realize that in the free market, the people determine whether or not to buy a product. If people buy gas at $4 a gallon, it is because gas is worth at least $4 a gallon to people. If the oil companies were truly out of touch with the consumers, consumers would refuse to buy their product. Obviously, that's not the case.

Our tax code is a train wreck. We need to eliminate all subsidies to all companies and establish the same tax rate for all. That is the only way to prevent class warfare (in the political rather than military sense). Make all pay for the government and there will be significantly less demand for more government growth. Demonize a particular group (aka the successful) and promise other people free goods at the cost of the demonized group may be politically effective but it is both nasty and unjust.