Hypocrite Conservatives Can't Adhere to Their Self-Proclaimed Principles

The Democratic House passed a new bill yesterday providing incentives to encourage the production of green energy technologies. Everyone in Washington seems to support the idea of encouraging the development of technologies. So why has President Bush threatened to veto the legislation? Well, to offset the increase in spending of approximately $17 billion, the bill cuts subsidies to oil and natural gas companies. Republicans in the house have been calling this "a tax on oil production." This is a shameless tactic that the Republicans have been using in spades: equating anything that increases the tax burden on any entity with a tax increase. It is false by definition. You see, all American-owned corporations are required to pay taxes. But if your industry just happens to be one that formerly employed the current president, turns out he's willing to give you a huge tax break, simply because you are already making such ridiculously large piles of money at the expense of the American consumer. Isn't that swell? It's not a tax increase - it merely requires that the fossil fuel empires who are currently trying to destroy our planet pay the same taxes as every other corporation or business. So where's the hypochrisy? In the NYT article, Republicans are quoted as saying that the bill would definitely pass (I guess they means it wouldn't be vetoed, since it has already passed) if only those restrictive "taxes" on oil companies were there. Why can't the Dems just pass legislation with the incentives for green energy, no strings attached? Apparently, the Democrats are adhering to a policy known as fiscal conservatism (that's right, conservatism), which requires the government to only spend as much money as it earns. Republicans have suddenly begun denouncing reckless spending, a phenomenon that manifested itself suddenly on a Tuesday night in November of 2006. I guess they felt that after six years of running up massive deficits, it was time for them to tighten their belt - if only the Dems would listen to them! The takeaway here is: House Republicans are full of sh*t.