Learn More in Eliminate Corporate Welfare

Political Power of the Agribusiness and Crop Insurance Lobbies

The so-called Farm Bill currently being negotiated in Congress is shaping up to be another taxpayer-funded handout to wealthy landowners,...

Farm Bill 101

The Farm Bill is a massive piece of legislation that guides food and farm policy. It covers wide-ranging topics from rural broadband service to farm subsidy payments....

Agricultural Safety Net 101

The agricultural safety net refers to the various federal programs and policies that insulate agricultural producers from the costs of conducting business....

Taxpayer-Backed Loan Guarantees for Liquid Coal: Medicine Bow, Wyoming

(Originally Posted December 2011, Most Recent Update: September 2012) In 2008, Medicine Bow Fuel & Power LLC applied for a $1.7 billion...

Big Oil Makes Top Dollar

The first half of 2012 has brought more multi-billion dollar profits for major oil companies. So far, these companies have raked in more...

Department of Energy Loan Guarantees: $8 Billion Allocated for Fossil Fuel Projects

While the program was intended for emerging energy technologies, mature industries like coal and nuclear are eligible as well. Congress provided the program with funding in several areas including advanced nuclear reactors, renewable and energy efficiency, front-end nuclear fuel cycle technology, and advanced fossil fuels....

Coal Industry Profits

For centuries the federal government has been in the business of providing billions in subsidies to coal companies in order to ensure...

Zombie Earmarks in Defense Spending Bill

The Fiscal Year 2013 defense spending bill heading to the House floor Wednesday is a lesson in why it’s so hard to cut defense spending...

Green Scissors 2012

Left-Right coalition identifies practical steps Congress could take to slash deficits, save natural resources....

Federal-Free Risk Management in Agriculture

Like all businesses, agricultural producers face a number of risks in maintaining a profitable enterprise. Successful management of these...

Dept. of Energy Offers USEC $280 Million Handout

In yet another attempt to revive the struggling United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), the Department of Energy (DOE) has offered...

Big Oil Tops $150 Billion in Profits in 2011

With annual financial reports being released this time of year, the oil and gas industry is looking to continue its decade long trend of...

Oil Profits Stay High; Needless Subsidies Continue

It appears the oil and gas industry is looking to continue its decade long trend of record profits. As of February 2nd, Chevron, Exxon...

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Too Costly for Taxpayers

Carbon capture and storage (CCS), also referred to as carbon capture and sequestration, is the process of separating carbon dioxide (CO2)...

The Department of Energy FutureGen Initiative

The latest iteration of the Department of Energy’s FutureGen project (find a timeline here) is a federal initiative to finance and...

Big Oil, Big Profits

Another quarter, another unsurprising set of reports of huge profits for the oil companies. Continuing to be some of the most profitable...

Super Cuts for the Super Committee

Taxpayers for Common Sense has been working hard to meet the challenge of that the so-called Super Committee is facing - $.12-1.5...

Myth v. Fact: Oil and Gas Companies’ Effective Tax Rate

Oil and gas companies have complained that they pay an effective tax rate of 41%....

Subsidy Gusher

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) released “Subsidy Gusher: Taxpayers Stuck with Massive Subsidies while Oil and...

Ongoing TCS Analysis of the FY2012 Budget Proposal

The FY2012 Presidential Budget Request was released this morning. TCS staff will be posting relevant documents and analysis as we digest...

Common Sense Cuts—$900 billion in savings over 10 years

The time has come for Congress to begin a serious discussion about how it is going to correct the current budgetary path into deeper and...

TCS reaction to Sen. Manchin (D-WV) Statement on Coal Subsidies

We all know that lawmakers are allowed the occasional stretching of the truth, but at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources...

TCS Recommended Budget Cuts for the 112th Congress

The time has come for Congress to begin a serious discussion about how it is going to correct the current budgetary path into deeper and...

Third Quarter Results are in and still the same story: Billions in profit, billions more in subsidie

Total SA made $3.2 in the third quarter; Shell: $3.5; Chevron: $3.8; Exxon: $7.4; and most telling of all, BP has emerged back into the...

Green Scissors 2010

Taxpayers for Common Sense joined a number of environmental and consumer groups and a bipartisan slate of Representatives today in...

Oil and Gas Industry: A Decade of Record Breaking Profits

Big Oil has made Big Money over the last decade. In fact, the last five years proved to be some of the most profitable for any U.S....

Details on the President’s Proposed Fossil Fuel Cuts

In keeping with President Obama’s call to end fossil fuel subsidies, the latest budget proposal includes several significant cuts to oil,...

Oil and Gas Royalties: Relief for Oil and Gas Companies, a Fiscal Headache for Taxpayers

Oil and gas companies that drill offshore or on public lands are required to pay for the oil and gas they remove in the form of royalties. However, because of out-dated energy policy and mismanagement of royalty collection, oil and gas companies often pay little to no royalties to the owners of the resources—U.S. taxpayers. At a time when oil companies have experienced five years of record profits, there is no need to subsidize the industry with royalty holidays. With prices at more than $80/barrel, and predicted to increase, the industry has ample incentive to produce more oil without taxpayer subsidies. ...

UPDATE: The President’s 2010 Budget: Reining in Oil and Gas Subsidies

The president’s fiscal year 2010 budget repeals several long-standing oil and gas subsidies, saving an estimated $31.7 billion over the next ten years.i In addition, general tax and subsidy reforms will save $108.5 billion, largely from subsidies that benefit the oil and gas industries. For nearly a century, taxpayers have provided billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil and gas industry, this proposal takes the first step toward reining in decades of giveaways....

Oil and Gas Industry Profits

Another Huge Year Exxon Mobil likes breaking records. In 2007, it posted the biggest annual profit number reported by any American...

Coal: A Long History of Subsidies

Subsidies to the coal industry began in 1932, when the federal government allowed companies to deduct a portion of their income to help...

TCS Fact Sheet: Coal Industry Profits

In 1932, the federal government began giving subsidies to the coal industry in order to help the industry recover initial capital...

Bailout Bank Bio: Chrysler

Chrysler LLC was founded in 1925 and is headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan.  In 2007 Cerberus Capital Management took up managing...

Bailout Bank Bio: AIG

UPDATE: March 4, 2009. After reporting a $61.7 billion quarterly loss – the biggest single quarter loss ever – in early March AIG asked...

Bailout Bank Bio: Capital One Financial Inc

Capital One Financial is a financial services company whose products and services include consumer and commercial banking and credit card...

Bailout Bank Bio: Goldman Sachs

On October 28, 2008, Goldman Sachs received $10 billion of the first $125 billion from the $700 billion bailout bill. Goldman Sachs is a...

Clean Coal Projects: Cleaning Out the Pockets of Taxpayers

Since the late 1970’s, the federal government has funneled billions of dollars into “Clean Coal” technology and programs designed to make...

Welfare for Waste

How Federal Taxpayers Subsidies Waste Resources and Discourage Recycling...

Pentagon Follies

How the Department of Defense Is Wasting Your Tax Dollars...

Engineering Boondoggles

While Washington is wringing its hands about the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as...