You can’t have your cake and eat it too - That is what they say for expressing the impossibility of having something both ways, if those two ways conflict.

Have a look at a recent D&C op-ed on tax breaks for Big Oil and Big Pharma. The op-ed implores candidates Clinton, Obama, Huckabee, and McCain to start talking about it eliminating these tax breaks on the campaign trail now.

ExxonMobil’s 2007 profits ” an eye-popping $40.6 billion” defy logic when gas prices are $3 a gallon, with the ever-present threat of shooting upward of $4.

The next president should make the tax breaks and production incentives oil companies receive from the government and the billions of dollars in subsidies for drilling on government-owned land a major target.

Oil companies are not alone. Prescription drugs, it’s well known, have also skyrocketed in cost, leaving many people with a difficult choice between medication and other essentials like food and yep, gas. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies aren’t hurting for profits.

Well, here’s a YouTube of Hillary Clinton talking about this topic a year ago. Here’s Barack Obama on energy & oil. I’m sure you can find other examples.

But how about looking at Congress NOW instead of the next President because really, per the Constitution, they have the purse strings.

How about looking at local Congressmen and how they view tax breaks for large companies? Tax breaks for the “ilk” that are exemplified by the word “Exxon”. Taxes for these types of companies is simply corporate welfare.

Remember the Energy Bill? Remember what the sticking point was in passing that bill? $21 BILLION in tax breaks for oil companies - twenty-one billion dollars that my representative said we needed. Unfortunately - the real story is right here. Randy hearts Bil Oil

D&C editorial page wasn’t exactly outraged at the retention of $21 billion dollars tax breaks for Big Oil when the last Energy Bill was passed (for access you really need a library card). Not even a mention.

It took seven years of his presidency, but George W. Bush finally signed into law a worthwhile energy policy. And that was with the push of a Democratic-controlled Congress. There’s much to like about the bill . It requires that the industrywide average fuel efficiency standard equal 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and small trucks by 2020. It requires a sixfold increase in the use of ethanol instead of gasoline. And it even phases out the use of incandescent light bulbs starting in 2012 and requires more efficient appliances and furnaces.

Let’s remember this in November when you are voting for the President as well as your member of Congress.

Meanwhile, hope there are plenty of heimlich maneuver posters in the D&C offices. They might come in handy especially if the there is cake in the area.

Just in case….

Related posts:

1. Rep Nadler visits D&C editorial board. Is all government spending bad?
2. Big Oil, Record Profits, and Tax Breaks: D&C jumps on the Band Wagon
3. D&C Editorial Board - weapons for oil
4. The D&C Editorial Board at it again - you guys are owned by Gannett not Fox
5. D&C editorial board gets it Right re, “the Bail Out”