Obama: "McCain Gives Oil Companies Tax Giveaways"

Obama has release this campaign commercial:



McCain does indeed want to lower the corporate tax rate for corporations (all of them, not just the big ones). You know, the same corporations the employ most of us. Yeah, they're evil. They should be taxed out of existence. You know how they're all raking in the cash in this great economy of ours.

And, contrary to what this ad implies and what the Obama campaign has been saying forever, McCain has no specific plan for lowering taxes on oil companies. The tax savings Obama sites for oil companies is simply the result of lowering the overall corporate tax rate. But if you believe Obama, you'd think McCain wanted to specifically lower the taxes on oil companies, which is not true.

The Associated Press actually has a good article outlining the issues involved:

McCain does call for a reduction in corporate taxes, from 35 percent now to 25 percent after 2014. But at least one Obama economic adviser has indicated that Obama himself might be open to a lower corporate tax rate — though not as low as McCain has recommended.

In an interview with Forbes.com last month, Jason Furman, Obama's director of economic policy, said: "He would like to cut the corporate tax rate, and it's a question that we're studying." In June, Obama also told The Wall Street Journal he might support a cut in corporate taxes. Still, Obama's economic plan aims the largest cuts toward lower-income taxpayers while McCain would give the largest tax cuts to high-income taxpayers.

The $4 billion in tax breaks for the oil companies is simply part of McCain's overall corporate tax reduction plan and does not represent an additional tax benefit. In other words, the corporate tax reduction applies to all corporations, oil companies included. Both Obama and McCain have proposed eliminating oil and gas tax loopholes.

Interesting, so Obama would also be in favor of reducing taxes on the "big corporations?" Of course I'm sure he'd find a way to exclude oil companies. We simply can't have companies being too successful in the United States. His plan would probably make companies with a high profit margin pay more taxes. Oh wait, that wouldn't work, since the profit margin of the oil companies is actually lower than many other industries.

And, according to the AP, both Obama and McCain have proposed eliminating the oil and gas tax loopholes.

Wrong Rating: 3 out of 4 (gross distortion)