Obama getting our money back?

Barack Obama noted in his speech today from Lansing, Mich. that last week Congress began work on a compromise that would include a “limited amount of new offshore drilling.” He said, “I’m willing to consider that IF it’s necessary to pass the legislation” that would break the addiction to foreign oil. “I’m not interested in the perfect being the enemy of the good…Investing in renewable energy “will create new jobs and whole new industries – good union jobs.”

The way to sell this windfall profits tax is to call it taking back the billions in subsidies and tax breaks given to the oil companies every year. The oil companies spend millions of dollars every year lobbying Congress to get those subsidies and tax breaks while recording record profits. That’s a direct transfer of billions of dollars every year from middle class taxpayers to the richest corporations the world has ever seen. Is it a “windfall profits tax” or is it just getting the money back that we should never have given them in the first place?