Writing at the Huffington Post, environmental activist Bill McKibben estimates that if we did away with all fossil fuel subsidies world wide, we'd be about halfway to solving global warming.
In petro-producing countries such subsidies are usually a gift to the resident population. The government buys gasoline at the regular wholesale price and sells it to the public at a loss, so in Nigeria, for example, the people who have cars get dollar gas.
In the US though the subsidies are just a straight-up gift to some of the richest corporations in the universe, a gift from the 99 percent straight into the pockets of the top .01 percent.
It's tax time right now, and Congress have blown it again. The Senate bill ending these obscene payoffs was "defeated" 51-47 -- you can tell which party is in charge there by the numbers. This raises a couple of questions. How could something be defeated when it was approved by a majority? Why do we keep subsidizing something we want less of?
And most importantly, when are the rich in this country going to start paying their share?
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