Sunday, October 08, 2023

You Pay a LOT For "Green"

All those bird- and whale-killer windmills and half-day useful sun-catchers cost you quite a bit, even though the "press" doesn't want you to know that.

...From 2016 to 2022, “energy-specific subsidies and support” totaled $183.3 billion, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration report. While “wind and solar power account for about 21% of domestic electricity production,” they nevertheless took in “a staggering $83.8 billion in subsidies, by far the largest share compared to any other category,” says Fox News.

The EIA says that over that period, “nearly half (46%) of federal energy subsidies were associated with renewable energy,” with “federal support for renewable energy of all types” more than doubling, from $7.4 billion in fiscal 2016 to $15.6 billion in fiscal 2022....

But but butbut COAL SUBSIDIES!!  GAS SUBSIDIES!!!

Sorry.  Not really.

...Meanwhile, “natural gas and petroleum-related tax expenditures” – which are not direct government spending nor tax loopholes – were $2.1 billion in fiscal 2022....

The "subsidies" term is thrown around by Green Weenies--but the numbers they cite are actually legitimate tax deductions, not "subsidies."  You get a tax deduction for 401(k) contributions; you get one for interest paid on student loans.  So are you being "subsidized"?  Are your children "tax expenditures"?

 ...Just like Apple, Starbucks and Amazon, fossil fuel companies can deduct the cost of doing business and asset depreciation. They can also utilize foreign tax credits as well as the breaks Congress created for domestic manufacturing. In instances when oil companies don’t pay the royalties that are usually required to extract oil and gas from public lands, the business incomes derived from these operations are still “taxed at the same levels as any other income,”...

$83 BN vs. $2.1 BN.

Someone should really check the investment portfolio of Congress-critters--and their spouses and children.  While we're at it, check on the siblings too (think of Jim Biden....)  

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