October 20, 2011
CONTACT:
Mike Surrusco: michael@taxpayer.net
(202) 546-8500 x102

Taxpayers for Common Sense Targets Oil and Gas Tax Breaks

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) launched an advertising campaign highlighting wasteful energy subsidies, tax breaks and other giveaways to oil and gas companies.

TCS is running a campaign, including online and radio ads, across the country to raise public awareness of the billions of dollars the government spends every year to subsidize some of the most profitable companies in the world, during a time when lawmakers are struggling to find ways to close the continuing budget deficits. The campaign focuses on the Green Scissors 2011 report, released with Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, and The Heartland Institute, as the Super Committee began its work this summer, and has featured events in Austin, TX to Seattle, WA to Pittsburgh, PA. Earlier this year, TCS signed a letter with 30 conservative groups calling on Congress to, “Begin to dismantle the current system of subsidies. Simply avoiding new subsidies is not enough for the long-term health of America’s economy. Congress should commit to a sustained, aggressive process of eliminating existing subsidies.”

The radio ad features two women conversing about the high cost of gasoline, noting that consumers have to pay twice – once at the pump, and once when they pay their taxes. The online ad will feature a video and information about other wasteful government subsidies to coal and nuclear power as well.

Woman1: Hey, can you believe these gas prices? $3.50 a gallon?!?
Woman2: I know. They’re going up again.
Woman1: Yeah, it is costing me over 50 bucks to fill my tank.
Woman2: Wow, 50 bucks?
Woman1: And, you know we pay twice for gas?
Woman2: Twice? What are you talking about?
Woman1: Well you pay once when you fill your tank and then a second time when you pay your taxes.
Woman2: A second time when I pay my taxes? What do you mean?
Woman1: Yes, It’s true. You pay twice because the oil companies that sell gasoline get billions in subsidies from Congress and those subsidies are taxpayer-funded – you and I pay for them.
Woman2: You're kidding!?
Woman1: No I’m not kidding, oil companies got $15 billion in subsidies from Congress just last year.

Ryan Alexander, president of TCS said, “Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals agree that these giveaways do not reduce our reliance on oil, lower gas prices, or promote innovation. They cost American families and taxpayers billions of dollars each year, they add to the debt, and they show how a powerful industry gets special treatment in Washington.”

For more information about our Common Sense Cuts, please visit commonsensecuts.org.

TCS is a non-partisan watchdog and we have been fighting for fiscal responsibility in Washington for more than 15 years – working with Democrats and Republicans, and groups on the right and the left. We are best known for our winning campaign against spending “earmarks” and as the original whistle-blower on the “Bridge to Nowhere” – a proposed $380 million Alaskan bridge that became an infamous example of federal waste and a hot button campaign issue in 2008.

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Taxpayers for Common Sense is an independent and nonpartisan voice for taxpayers, working to increase transparency and expose and eliminate wasteful and corrupt subsidies, earmarks, and corporate welfare. For more information, visit: www.taxpayer.net