Has a Magic Extraction Process Been Discovered by Corbett Campaign?
PITTSBURGH: As part of their defense of Tom Corbett’s refusal to back a commonsense levy on the extraction of natural gas, his campaign argued that he opposed it because, the Associated Press reported, “a new tax might drive the industry out of Pennsylvania.”
That would be pretty impressive given that the natural gas deposits are located in Pennsylvania.
Where would the drillers who have literally invested hundreds of millions, if not billions, in Pennsylvania Marcellus shale go and still be able to get at the underground natural gas?
And wouldn’t they have problems drilling from another state – since every other major gas-producing state has an allegedly industry-chasing extraction tax in place already?
The Corbett campaign has yet to reveal their secret extraction process – perhaps they’re keeping the secret stored with the list of cuts Corbett will make to the Attorney General’s office budget this year – something requested by the Governor and that other independent agencies have agreed to, yet Corbett refuses to commit to?
But perhaps the Corbett campaign does not have a magic extraction process at all.
Maybe Corbett’s opposition is linked to the simple fact that Corbett is the state’s number one leader in accepting cash from the natural gas industry.
While it’s not quite as impressive as a magic extraction process, making taxes disappear for your benefactors is certainly a kind of magic.
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4 comments:
I'm sure the thought occurred to many of us, when we first heard the industry snivel "You put a tax on Marcellus - then we'll, we'll, we'll take our toys & leave Pennsylvania!"
What utter bs, not just because other states with deep gas already have severance taxes in place, it's also because to get gas, they got to be where it IS. And I can vouch that our state has a lot of gas.
It seems like I remember a middle aged African American woman on one of those commercials, and I couldn't tell you what it was for, although I think it was an energy company or association. She was saying something against taxes (I believe) on carbon or something. She ended with something like "It seems like we are being taxed almost to death" as I remember it.
I also remember a graphic that said that the United States is one of the least taxed countries on earth, certainly among the developed nations.
It seems like Tea Party types and Republicans in general are going from one extreme to another, in rapid succession. First the stimulus didn't work, because things got somewhat worse (could they get even worse? Ask 1932). Then Obama has raised all sorts of new taxes, or maybe they will be raised as a result of healthcare reform, which is a tax anyway because small businesses will have to go out of business when they buy Cadillac healthcare for their suddenly lazy and greedy (Democratic) employees. No, Obama raised taxes. Then we need to cut services because of the deficit and anyway the stimulus doesn't work. Then we need to worry about the deficit and all the borrowing we are doing (since all our new taxes must be going to corrupt Democrats). Then we need to make sure not to raise taxes (which were designed in the law to have a sunset provision, this being required because the Republicans passed the law using reconciliation (gasp)) on people making more than 250,000, as they are our small business class, and will leave America if their taxes go up.
Like Mr. Corbett tells us.
in reference to Ed's third paragraph, I quote Jimmy Carter's pollster, Pat Caddell "“Democrats used to be the voice of the common man in America, not his dictator,” Caddell laments. “Now, with Wall Street, their mantra is, ‘We’ll take your money, but we won’t kiss.’ The people who own the party — George Soros, the Center for American Progress, the public-employee union bosses, rich folks flying private jets to ‘ideas festivals’ in Aspen — they’re Obama’s base.” Even Caddell recognizes that Obama doesn't represents the majority of Democrats!!Ergo, the butt kicking Dems that will take in Nov by the tea partiers and their GOP fellow travelers!!
Rich, there may well be some truth in what you say, although I would argue the situation is more complicated than you describe. A number of Democratic Congress-persons were elected in districts or states that are majority Republican, and so if they want to keep their seats they have to lean further to the right. Plus Republicans/conservatives are just as good at pushing the fear button as they ever were during the Bush administration, they have (to oversimplify) just replaced "Democrat" for "terrorist" and "stimulus" and/or "deficit" for "attack". So it is not surprising Democrats are less responsive to the needs of their historic constituencies.
But if the Tea Party and Republicans do take Congress, I would say the chances will be in a much worse recession by this time next year are about two thirds. We have already seen the Republicans/conservatives version of economics. Of course, wealthy white Americans won't be suffering, poor minorities will take the brunt of the impact of the downturn.
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