Slow, Oily Tears for CEO's

You're going to see a lot of commentary on this editorial by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, in which she recommends that everyone be as friendly to Big Oil as possible, as they are keepers of national security and defenders of economic stability. There's plenty to pick on and very little that makes sense, but I'd like to address something very specific, a single thing that invalidates what is basically a pro-business argument.

Go read the article, and then observe the following quote from it, concerning Congressional reaction to the drop in refinery output that occurred after Hurricane Katrina:

Two years ago, Congress established incentives to spur investment in additional refining production, leading to major announcements of refining expansion.

Congress has now proposed repealing these incentives, delivering a tremendous and unexpected setback for companies investing billions of dollars in refinery expansion or new construction projects.

This is part of a larger problem that CEOs consistently bring to my attention — specifically, that Congress' constant meddling in the tax code puts America at a competitive disadvantage, encouraging companies to relocate assets to other countries, where the tax code and regulatory process is more predictable and stable.

So CEO's are bringing this to your attention, are they? I'm not surprised. Of course CEO's aren't happy when their companies have to pay taxes, and that's what this is about, not the stability of the tax code. The fact that arguments made to the Senator by CEO's made it into this editorial represents a kind of relationship that most business owners don't normally get to have with government figures.

Really, let's consider this: how is it that when an infrastructural crisis passes and the help is no longer necessary, repealing the billions of dollars in incentives is "instability"? If the tax code had the kind of stability everyone apparently yearns for, these companies wouldn't have gotten any help in the first place. Does anyone else see the irony in the idea that when Congress is forking over dollars to companies in an initiative that, if it were money made available to individuals, or single mothers, Republicans would call it welfare; and yet, when the help is no longer needed and the incentives will be repealed, they call it tax code instability?

This paired with her ridiculous assertion about national security (that if oil companies pay taxes, al-Qaeda will move in down the block) makes this editorial about as transparent as can be. Kay Bailey Hutchison spends 808 words doing what she does every day in Washington — representing for big oil and big business.