Thanks to Trump and the GOP, this industry does more to screw us than any other
Which is the worst industry in America? If you’re thinking crypto or Big Finance, you’re getting close. But the winner for the most disreputable industry is Big Oil.
Bad enough it’s despoiling our planet — making life miserable for hundreds of millions of people and literally threatening human life as we know it.
It’s also corrupting our democracy — using its profits to bribe people in high places, such as you-know-who.
It’s at the center of an ecological and political doom loop.
Every time you go to the gas pump or heat your home, you’re effectively being charged twice. First, you pay for the actual cost of the fuel itself — a cost that has risen 46 percent since 2019.
Second, as a taxpayer, you’re also footing the bill for the billions of dollars Big Oil gets through special subsidies and tax breaks — which are ballooning under Trump.
These handouts don’t go toward lowering prices for us. They help boost oil and gas companies’ profits — at the expense of your wallet and our planet.
All told, Big Oil already extracts about $35 billion a year from the federal budget in direct industry-specific tax breaks and subsidies.
Trump promised Big Oil even more in return for supporting his 2024 election bid.
In their big ugly tax bill, Trump and Republicans handed Big Oil an additional $18 billion in giveaways over the next 10 years. That includes the ability of oil and gas corporations to escape or limit the 15 percent minimum tax all corporations are required to pay.
Big Oil also gets to drill on more public lands and pay less in royalties to the U.S. for doing so.
Fossil fuel giants also gain from the rollback of clean energy tax credits and investments. These had been lowering your energy costs, creating thousands of good-paying jobs, reducing our dependence on oil and gas, and limiting climate change. But, hey, Big Oil wanted them gone, and — presto — they’re gone.
And what does Big Oil do with its big profits?
It spends billions juicing its own stock prices with stock buybacks to further enrich its major shareholders and top executives. And spends millions more paying off politicians in Congress to do its bidding. In the last election cycle, Big Oil spent $445 million.
That flood of money — including contributions to Trump’s campaign — is responsible for the latest round of Big Oil’s special tax breaks and subsidies, despite voters overwhelmingly wanting to end them.
While we continue to pay through the nose at the pump and on our home energy bills, the climate crisis is accelerating and our planet is being polluted — with weather disasters costing the U.S. over $180 billion in 2024 alone.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Big Oil’s agenda is not popular.
It’s also not inevitable. We can fight back.
The first step is spreading the truth about our giveaways to Big Oil. That’s why my talented young associates and I made this video — to give you a powerful visual version of what I’m writing about that you can share widely:
We need to keep fighting to get big money out of politics so we can reduce Big Oil’s influence on our democracy.
And we need to advocate for our taxpayer dollars to be spent on programs that actually deliver for people — like investing in clean energy that reduces our energy bills and protects the environment.
This is the future we deserve. When (and if) we’re back in power, Big Oil will pay the price.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
- Robert Reich's new memoir,Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.
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